Releasing our Butterflies...

I will post pictures later but if you scroll down a little you will see the caterpillars we ordered a couple of weeks ago to go in our butterfly garden. We have had a fun time watching these five little furries change into beautiful butterflies. They did just as the instructions said, they ate and ate their food that was in the bottom of the cup they arrived in until they were fluffy, big caterpillars. Then they crawled to the top and began to form their cacoons, after they were all hanging, we removed the piece of paper that they were attached to and attached it to the inside of our mesh butterfly garden. They hung there for almost a week and then slowly they all began to hatch out, until there were five butterflies. Since the weather was stormy over the weekend we fed them watermelon and orange slices until today when we released them. It was a happy event to watch each of them flutter out the top and into the big world. We watched to see where they might go and then another would emerge. Carson asked if I thought they'd "come back home". I told him probably not b/c their life span was short but I was sure they enjoy being about to fly around. They all made it safely until the fifth one exited. Apparently one of our cats was nearby watching these fluttery things and thought it would be neat to play with it. The fifth one flew only a short distance and landed on the grass, when pounce, the cat caught it by the back wing. The cat went running, the butterfly fluttering as best it could and me chasing the cat. I was so upset with this cat. When I finally caught it, she let the butterfly go and with one mangled back wing, the butterfly flew. I was so grateful and Carson kept a close eye on it, wondering if its wing would heal. He actually found it on a bush in our front yard and was able to get it to walk onto his finger. He carried it around in the garage for a while and then put it up high in a safe place so hopefully the cat would not get it again. Later when we went back outside, it was gone, so hopefully it flew away. At least that's what we hope happened! It's so neat how God makes things to know exactly what to do, crawl, eat a lot, hang upside down, spin a tight cover around you and then EMERGE as a beautiful butterfly. Thank you Lord for creating butterfly's and how they teach us about your handiwork!