Along with the Outdoor Hour Challenges, we checked out the cattails as we walked through a local park. We look forward to observing these throughout the seasons as we enjoy nature.

The kids had found a monarch caterpillar munching on a milkweed plant at a nearby nature park a couple weeks back when we were there for an outdoor supper. They gathered a few milkweed leaves for it to feed on and took it home to our butterfly 'house.' We enjoyed watching it devour those leaves for a few days and then it kind of faded into the background when the kids put the house to sit in the bushes. I had all but forgotten about the thing, basically figuring that it would a) not survive the prying of all the curious little hands and b) if it did survive that, I wasn't sure how to keep it alive long enough to go into metamorphosis, beyond giving it milkweed leaves.

Much to my surprise, a few days ago one of the girls mentioned that there's something hanging on the ceiling of the butterfly house that really looks like a chrysalis, and she can't find the caterpillar. I didn't get a chance to check it out until a bit later and lo and behold, I believe that creature is going to pull through it's changes right before our eyes. Now I wish I had taken a photo of it as a caterpillar! But here it is as it dangles above the dryed out leaves in it's 'home.' Not sure if this picture will show up very well, but you can actually see the edges of the wings forming right through that chrysalis!

Nature Study

We started our Nature Study a couple weeks ago. For now, a few pictures will have to suffice for a glance into this new venture.