Twenty Days and Twenty Nights

     Normally, the books say, a Monarch emerges from its chrysalis in 10-14 days. In the spring, our Monarchs pushed that a little, to 16-17 days. but when Bruno, the oldest, started pushing on towards 19 days, and started to darken slowly, we worried. Perhaps taking them inside to the mesh enclosure on the porch was not enough to save them. Some nights had been cool, but just to the mid-40's. The outer casing of a Monarch chrysalis goes completely transparent about 12 hours or so before eclosure, revealing the jewel inside. On day 19, the darkness was more foreboding, and the timing was off. 
       When we awoke on the 20th day, October 9th, we knew that Bruno was going to be either a goner or a butterfly. At 7:18 AM, it looked a heck of a lot better. Clearly, there was a butterfly inside, ready to come out. 

           Almost three hours later, at 10:08, the process began, as the Monarch pushed open a side flap, stuck a leg out to grab on to the ridge on the capsule's exterior, slid down headfirst until its fluid-filled abdomen fell out, and its tiny curled wings began to unfurl, ready to be pumped into shape. Among the first things it does is assemble the two halves of its proboscis. 

         The elapsed time represented by the above sequence is one hour and six minutes.  Bruno rested for about an hour, letting his wings dry, still hanging from the shell of the chrysalis in the enclosure, which we had made a sort of terrarium, complete with a Lantana mini-bar. . 

         Bruno (indeed it was a male) was not alone in his temporary home. In fact, for these couple hours, we had in residence all three principal stages of the  Monarch lifecycle: caterpillar, chrysalis, and butterfly. Keith was happily munching up every leaf of the five small and scraggly plants we had scrounged from a fifty-mile radius.  Mr. Bean, still green at day 17, is following in Bruno's  leisurely updraft.

        About five hours after emergence, at 3:22 PM, Bruno was finally coaxed out into the wild with the bloom of a zinnia, giving us one last look before he flew out the screen door of the porch. 

       While the garden is certainly winding down, flowers remain in bloom, especially the pentas, butterfly bushes, marigolds, and  zinnias. A few butterflies still drop in for a meal, like the Clouded Sulphur and the much smaller Red-banded Hairstreak. 

        Gratitude abounds.