Flutter Bye

Several weeks ago Orrin took Silas to a Butterfly class at one of the local elementary schools.
They played butterfly bingo, won butterfly tattoos, (ratoos as Silas calls them), built a butterfly house, colored butterfly pictures, made a butterfly journal, and got to bring home six caterpillars in a jar filled with a gross looking caterpillar food paste.
Silas's assignment was to watch the caterpillars everyday and record his observations. We did ok until the camping trip, although his drawings may not have been the most accurate he enjoyed watching the caterpillars get fatter and made precise comments about how much food they had and where it was smeared in the jar.
When we came back from the camping trip they were all wrapped up int their chrysalises so we missed watching that. But we moved them to their butterfly house so when the emerged they could stretch their wings.
Silas drew a few more pages in the journal, selecting bizarre colors and odd orientations. Finally a couple days ago the first 5 emerged. Although we didn't see them in action they did leave weird red splatters all over the bottom of their house. There was one little chrysalis left to hatch (is that right?) and I vowed to watch it closely so that we would see the butterfly come out. Ha! Like I'm that good to just sit around watching a couple paper plates and netting... So we didn't see the last one emerge either. But emerge it did.
We fed them by soaking some cotton balls in sugar water. But after a day of that we decided it was time to let them go. Silas carried the butterfly house out to the back yard and we unceremoniously ripped the netting from the staples to release the butterflies. Silas was very gentle in untangling the netting and let one butterfly go at a time. Following it up into the air and letting everyone know where it landed or disappeared.
The boys examined and poked at the empty chrysalis husks. Silas kept explaining to Emmet that there were caterpillars inside. And not to touch the butterfly wings becasue the scales would rub off and they wouldn't be able to fly. It was very cute.
The last butterfly to escape the house may have gotten injured in the flurry of netting, or maybe she always had a wonky wing. But she couldn't fly very well. Silas coaxed her onto a stick, and then discoved that "she likes my finger better." He placed her in a potted geranium so she could have something to eat. But before we went in for the night she had flown over to the sunflowers, though I doubt she makes it through the night. In case you are wondering, the butterflies are painted ladies.