This weekend has been of the delicious kind that overflows with happenings, one of which was the emergence of our first ever Orchard Swallowtail.
These are prone to pests, and we have had no success with them in the past. The little girls and I found several very large caterpillars at my parents house last year, and were thrilled with the find. It took a very short time after bringing them inside, before they began to twitch, sicken, and die.
The horror! We realised too late that my mother, (bug paranoid person that she is) had both an electronic emitting device (who knew they worked?) and a wall mounted dispenser which periodically pumps the air with pyrethrin – a natural insecticide.
The two hardiest specimens, after surviving the equivalent of caterpillar concentration camp, were eaten by pests while in the chrysalis.
So – we were very excited to have this alive, healthy butterfly emerge. 
Feb 24, 2010 @ 09:39:07
With all the fuss over your hair and outfit (you girly thing, you
) we have overlooked this wonderful post you have written!
I am so glad your girls got to see the full experience of this beautiful butterfly emerging into the world…
Fancy those poor ill-feted ones being ‘poisoned’ to death! Who would have thought those contraptions actually work??
I like your photos…
Feb 24, 2010 @ 11:31:17
you girly thing, you
Ah, pardon me while I put my sober, homeschooling mama hat back on
The girls missed the actually emerging of this one – though I kept it under net until they came home. I nearly missed it myself.
Butterflies are supposed to come out between 7 – 11am. It’s never failed. On the morning this chrysalis turned a different colour (the sign they are going to come out), the girls and Mr BB were going out. I had been out the night before, and crawled into bed around 3am (groan!), so wasn’t so keen to go with them.
I nearly gave up on this one, as I had wasted hours of prime sleeping time (no baby home!) watching for it. By 10:55am I had decided that it was all a bad joke, a hoax to finish off a very tired mama, and was heading off to bed when…pop! There it was.
If there is not another sound in the house (only happens when I am home by myself) you can hear the tiniest of tiny pops when the chrysalis opens.
It’s pretty special, even when you are tired
Feb 24, 2010 @ 15:44:51
wow! talk about just making it at the 11th hour! 5 mins to go, and it hatched (or whatever you call it!) lol… isn’t nature amazing!!
3am? you must have been tired 8)
Feb 24, 2010 @ 20:56:02
Yes, pretty amazing
As for that 3am big night out – with a bunch of little folk to look after the next day, I can’t recommend it as good practice
But, even sober minded homeschool mamas need to hit the town occasionally. We did laps for a while
Not because I couldn’t resist, but because… I can’t park for peanuts. I had to keep driving around and around looking for a park that was dead easy. After the second lap, I told my friend we would have to roll the windows down and just say, “boom, boom, boom” in a kind of base way, because the only music I had in the car was instrumental cello, (which wouldn’t cut it with the townies, lol!)
Feb 25, 2010 @ 16:41:05
Wow – what an amazing experience for your girls!
Have a wonderful week,
Blessings,
Jillian
Feb 26, 2010 @ 06:41:59
Thanks, Jillian. They do enjoy it, particularly as the butterflies, (in varying degrees) will let you handle them before releasing outside.
Feb 27, 2010 @ 12:08:59
@ BB what do you keep the butterflies in ?
Feb 28, 2010 @ 17:31:56
Hello Luke, I have very large (about a litre and a half capacity) glass jars with wide mouths for individual butterflies, and a small, glass tank a bit bigger than a family size tissue box if I have two or three.
The tank has a glass lid, but for the wide mouth jars I cut a stocking and stretch over the opening.
Mar 01, 2010 @ 11:52:32
Hi Mrs BB,
If you ever visit the North Coast of New South Wales, I highly recommend a visit to the Butterfly House at Bonville (south of Coffs Harbour). We had gone past it so many times and then finally decided we would go in. Initially the $40 entry for a family of 6 we thought was expensive, but the experience of having dozens of butterflies landing on you, and the variety within the butterfly house itself made me think it was worth the price. The children’s faces were a delight to witness.
At our farm, although we have many butterflies, I haven’t ever seen their chrysalis, so I will need to become a bit more observant in future!
Bye for now,
Heidi
Mar 01, 2010 @ 20:28:01
these are great
I like the one you’ve titled ‘drying wings’
Mar 01, 2010 @ 21:54:39
Hello Heidi
We have been to that butterfly house! The New England area is one of our favourite holiday destinations, and the drive to the butterfly house was not too dramatic from a farmstay we were at two years ago.
It was all you say. My only regret was that I had just bought a new camera (my first that wasn’t a point and shoot), and I had no idea how to use it. I’d like to go back now that I am a bit more confident with it – butterflies contained in a hot house (and wasn’t it hot!) are much easier to shoot than when they can roam unlimited
If you have lots on your farm, the easiest thing would be to identify them first, so you can read about what the grubs feed on. That will take you to the type of plant to look for, and then the caterpillar hunt is kind of fun
If you find a chrysalis and want to keep it to watch, be sure to mist it with a water spray each night.
(and – ahem!
cease all indoor bug killing endeavours..)
Vimal, thank you