Some chrysalises go to school and the emerging of my last two

I thought it might be educational to send some of the chrysalises my to grandkids school. North Landing Elementary has received a total of 6; 3 to the 3rd grade and 3 to the 5th grade.
The very next day, my final two eclosed.
Here is number 3 with number 4 in the foreground.

A close up of the number 4 chrysalis.

Within 30 minutes, number 4 butterfly comes out! This series took 5 minutes.

The butterfly dried its wings for several hours and eventually dropped to the bottom of the container.

My husband Joe and I released them into our garden.
One flew away immediately. The other allowed some interaction with Joe.

This was a beautiful experience for the two of us. We await news from North Landing Elementary School!

First of the Butterflies emerge!

FINALLY! The first of the Monarch butterflies have emerged from their chrysalises. This is called "eclosing," and they came exactly 10 days from the date they pupated! Here is the first butterfly to eclose. Next to it is another chrysalis where you can see the butterfly wings.

The chrysalis turns very, very dark and you can see the butterfly inside quite clearly! Of course, I missed it eclosing.

 This is a cell phone photo of one of the newly released butterflies.

Here are the adult butterflies at night, still drying their wings and preparing for their long trip to Mexico. They were gone in the morning.

Waiting

I have moved all three containers containing the chrysalises inside. Tomorrow, 2 containers containing 3 each will be going to my grandchildren's school, North Landing Elementary. The students will be getting some "real time" science lessons! Good luck to the 6 chrysalises going to school!

Harvesting Common Milkweed Seeds

Today I harvested Common milkweed seeds for next year. The plant produces seed pods which must hold dozens of seeds.

I watched a video of how to do this.
https://youtu.be/fhjkC1Mbzlg

The video was pretty accurate. The fluff can stick to your hands though.

I only harvested 7 pods and this is the harvest, with one unopened pod on top. These seeds will now dry out for 3 days.

Teenie, tiny caterpillar

As I was cutting some milkweed leaves for the remaining caterpillars, I came across this very small larva. I guess it just recently hatched. Smallest one I have ever seen.

The cats are pupating!

This means they are going through metamorphosis. The caterpillar is going from the caterpillar stage to the chrysalis stage. The adult butterfly should emerge from the chrysalis in 10 to 14 days. There are 3 caterpillars in this stage was I write this post.

Measuring the cats

This is a photo of the biggest, plumpest caterpillar! Closing in on the 2 inch mark!