Look What I Found on My Front Porch!

I’ve gotten in to the unfortunate habit, lately, of waiting until Thursday afternoon, or evening, to write up a new post. I’ll have had an idea and been thinking about it for a few days, but I haven’t put fingertips to keyboard until late. Then, I end up not getting to bed until 1:00 a.m. or later, because I write it, and I edit it, and I need photos and search for them, and then have to scan them and get them put in where I want them, and then edit again because I always miss something, and then send it off to Kevin to look at, but by then he’s gone to bed and won’t read it until morning, and I MUST STOP DOING THAT!!! It is not a good professional practice.

So, this week, I wrote the rough drafts of TWO posts, let them rest for a day, then went back to do the first edits on one of them. Then, Thursday, early, I got the photos I needed, scanned them, looked up some information, and got things ready. The only snag was needing a nice clear photo of the blue sky. All day Thursday, incredibly for July in Texas–no blue sky. It rained, steadily, ALL DAY. Which is a really good thing, as we can always use the rain in the middle of summer, but what about my photo? I was standing on the front porch, with my phone ready, just in case an enormous wind blew through and pushed away all those sky-cloaking clouds so I could get my picture, when I glanced down … AND THIS IS WHAT I SAW!!

I was really startled to see them there (those caterpillars). I’ve had that kind before; they are usually munching away at my parsley in the herb garden. Those leaves at the bottom of the picture are rose leaves. Black swallowtail caterpillars eat rose leaves? Ohhhhh. That picked-over, almost-leafless plant at the top of the photo was rue, a kind of herb. That makes much more sense. But, and this is the problem that I often have with the parsley, they’ve practically eaten up the whole plant! Now what!! It was too late to get to the nursery and buy more plants. The caterpillar on the plant was v-e-r-r-r-r-y still, in that way that caterpillars often are when they are ready to find a place to go and make their chrysalises. (I looked it up; that’s the plural.) The caterpillar on the rim was scampering around the edge of the pot, either looking for something else to eat or someplace else to chrysalis him/her self. (I can tell the men from the ladies when they’re butterflies, but not when they’re caterpillars.)

Anyway, the situation looked dire, if they were still in eating mode. I raced back through the house and got the butterfly habitat and went out and pulled that almost-eaten-away rue plant from the dirt and put it in the habitat, with the quiet caterpillar still sitting motionless on it. The traveling caterpillar had traveled. I could not find him/her anywhere! Not in the pot, not under the pot, not around the pot. Not on the porch steps, not on the porch railing, not under the porch edge, NOWHERE!! A large, black bird swooped into the yard. Oh, dear. Maybe the traveling caterpillar had become somebody’s dinner.

All safe and snug in the habitat.

I took the habitat, with the rue plant and the remaining caterpillar, to the back porch, a space that’s a little shadier during the day. I cut a big chunk of parsley from the herb garden and threw it in, just in case the rue-eating caterpillar was still hungry, and it’s the only thing I have that I think he/she might be willing to eat. Actually, many years ago, at our previous house, we had some that ate up a couple of dill plants. But I’m not growing any dill. And, given previous experience, they don’t seem to like herbs that have been sitting around at the grocery store. I don’t know why. Too cold? Too old?

I’ve seen the suggestion to put sticks in a butterfly habitat for caterpillars to crawl up onto, to create their chrysalises. I’ve tried that before and these kind don’t do sticks. Instead, when they’re ready, they just crawl up the side of the habitat, as far as they can, and they attach to the edges of the top. Years ago, with those dill-eating caterpillars, I had them in an open container. Someone had told me that, when you find caterpillars, if you put them in a container with whatever it is they were on, they will stay in the container, because that’s what they like to eat. I found that to be true, as long as they’re still eating! When they are done eating and ready to make chrysalises, they will crawl right by whatever sticks you may have in that container, over the top, and out of sight. A couple of weeks after they had scampered away in the middle of the night (leaving a container of sticks and dill), I found a butterfly sitting calmly in the middle of a bedroom, fortunately just out and not quite ready to fly well. So, I could scoop him up and move him outside. Months later, when I moved a piece of cardboard from between the washer and dryer, I found the empty chrysalis. There were three or four other caterpillars in that open container. We never saw any of them again.

ALL FRESH UPDATE (Thursday evening, about 7:00)–I just went out to check, and look!!

The caterpillar has indeed crawled up to the very top of the habitat and appears to be settling in. Not as hungry, I guess, as I feared. Friday morning, there should be a chrysalis, and in a couple of weeks, a new butterfly!

If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.

Matthew 6:25, 26 (The Message)

I think butterflies can be the same sort of example to us as the birds are.