Its Meconium!

Not blood. After reading the Butterfly study guide that came with the butterfly netted cage that I borrowed, we learned that it was meconium and not blood splattered so elegantly on the white dinner plate and walls of my homemade cage. So butterflies don't bleed, but it sure does look like it!

So for the most part it took less than 7 days for the butterflies to hatch. They started on Friday night and 5 of the 6 had come out by Sunday. I decided to give my neighbor the newly borrowed cage and put the remaining unhatched pupa in it and one live butterfly. Did you know you can pick up a butterfly? Just hold its wings together close to its body and if it get agitated hold it upside down. I did break one of the tiny scales off of her forewing moving her from the home made cage. But she flies fine. Sunday around 4pm the final pupa hatched.

Anyways, when we finally gave her the butterflies, the two were flying around all excited when I exposed them to the fresh air. Since they have such small life spans (two weeks), I decided to let them be outside yesterday afternoon. What I didn't take into consideration was that ants would find the butterfly sugar water so quickly. Ants covered the bottom of the plate. I couldn't leave the cage outside at night. because the weather was too cool for them (55 degrees is lowest end on the scale). Luckily my neighbor walked by and she offered to give back the cage. I put the remaning butterflies in it and they fluttered about more happily. I think they prefer the soft netted walls. The hard window screen is a little more painful to bounce off of when you want to practice flying.

It has been a busy 3 weeks preparing for company. We have just been playing outside and taking it slow. We covered Lessons 65 and 66 in Saxon K Math on Sunday and have begun discussing Hydrogen.

We made butter on Sunday by shaking whipping cream for 20 minutes. "What do you think this will turn into? " I asked as we were shaking it. "Pizza". "I don't know".... Luckily it was close in consistency when the time ended and they guessed right.