The Week With All The Butterflies

I took a small social media break this past week. It was much needed. I've been dreading those weekly notifications that tell me how much time I spent scrolling. I deleted some apps for a few days and it's been refreshing.

We had a week with NO doctor appointments and it was so nice. Obviously, we didn't go anywhere. But, it was nice to relax for a few days. I'm pretty sure on Monday and Tuesday Livi and I spent most of the day on the couch. After a headache from probably laying around too much, I knew I had to be productive on Wednesday. Thursday, I went to see my mama for a bit. Then, we came home and Livi worked on some crafts and I got some reading in. Friday, Livi and I grabbed breakfast, went through her room and got rid of some things she no longer plays with, and then watched some Gilmore Girls until Dannie got home. I think we fit a library trip in there one of those days.

We released LOTS of monarch's this week. I think we released 8. Sadly, one didn't make it due to an injured wing. But, I think we were releasing almost 2 a day. We still have one in it's chrysalis, but we have a few more days before it's ready to come out.

I've had quite a few people ask me where we are getting our butterflies from and what habitat we used for them. We started by finding a few caterpillars on my milkweed plants back in March. They were still pretty small then, but I ordered a butterfly cage from amazon. Once the cage arrived, I moved them inside the house in the cage. I just cut off a few stems from my milkweed plants for them to eat on. This is what monarchs eat and they eat a lot of it! After a few days I noticed the stems I was cutting weren't staying fresh for long, so I looked up how to keep it fresh. I saw lots of people were using stem tubes. They are just clear tubes with a hole in the top. But, you add water and then stick the stems down in. I found these on Amazon and they worked great.  I also placed a puppy pad at the bottom of the cage because we noticed when the butterflies emerge from their chrysalis, they release a gross fluid that you do not want to fall on your carpet.

Since the first 4 we started with, we were able to feed and release 8 more. It's been such a fun experience and we've learned so much about monarchs. Olivia has loved it. You can tell if the butterflies are male or female once they come out their chrysalis by checking for a black spot on their hind wings. If it has the spot, it's a male. If theres no spot, it's a female. This is her favorite part and she names them afterwards. Even though it's impossible to tell them apart if we have more than one and they are the same gender.  Whatever makes her happy. <3

Slow Saturday happening over here. Since it's one million degrees out we'll probably fill up Livi's pool in a little bit. Hope ya'll have a good weekend! :)