Monarchs

Along with a bunch of fresh peaches (see previous post), my friend Wendy sent us home with a dozen or so monarch chrysalises. She is gathers the eggs off the milkweed in her yard and raises monarchs every summer. But she is moving today, so she couldn't take these on the road with her. We usually gather eggs off milkweed by the pond down the street, but we weren't able to raise any monarchs this summer and we didn't think we'd be able to, since we were traveling so much.  So we felt very fortunate to receive hers and care for them in her stead. Today, the first one hatched! After about an hour, we had to run to piano practice, so we carried it gently outside and hung it on our butterfly bush to allow its wings to finish drying and so that it wouldn't start flying inside the house before we got back home. What an awe-inspiring wonder! Raising monarchs never grows old!