Justice's Monarch Hatching Adventure

Well, Justice’s first monarch hatching journey has finished out! Here’s how it looked…

Day 1

 

Day 3
He had already tripled in size and Justice gave him the name Edward. :)

 

Day 4
The leaf on the left shows how much he ate in one day before Justice gave him the new leaf on the right.

 

Day 7
Now you can see his stripes! The hole in the leaf is just what he had eaten earlier that morning.

 

Day 13 - morning
Somehow quite a few days went by without me taking a picture, but Justice noted that Edward was eating a leaf a day by this time. Then, on this day Justice excitedly announced that Edward had made his way to the top of the netting and attached on. First step in making his cocoon! Apparently he decided the lid was the perfect spot, but it sure made it hard to get his picture!

 

Day 13 – afternoon
While we were at Justice’s basketball tournament Edward made his cocoon, and by the time we got back that afternoon he looked like this:

 

We knew he may be in his cocoon for up to 14 days. Justice and JJ hit the road with Jake for tournaments and I continued to check up on the cocoon at home. Then Jayla and I got ready to meet the boys up in Minnesota for a tournament. In my mind I was weighing whether or not I should bring Edward along in the car in case he hatched. But I was worried that all the jostling in the car would knock his cocoon down off the lid - it really looked like it was only hanging by a string. In the end I decided to leave him at home and hope that he didn’t hatch until we got back since it had only been 9 days since he made his cocoon. One Day 22 I asked Yaw who was still at home to check on him, and he said he was still in his cocoon and his cocoon was still green (it would turn black once he was ready to come out). Then, on Day 23 we got a text from Yaw in the afternoon saying Justice’s butterfly was out! We were so excited but TOTALLY BUMMED that we were going to miss the best part! We told Yaw to set him free and to make sure to take some pictures for us! The only camera Yaw had was the one on his phone, so he did the best he could and sent us a string of pics as he opened up the flap and Edward climbed to the top!

 

And then, in true happy ending fashion, he flew off into the sunset! :)

 

Oh, we are SO going to have to do this again!!!!!!