Last Butterflies of Summer

We've been waiting for the last two of Maya's butterflies to hatch so we could let go of her "pets" and pack up her butterfly cage. They finally did, few days ago. These were black swallowtails. The first one was giant, slow and tame, did not want to leave Maya's hand when it was time to release it. The second one hatched couple days later, and was fluttering away in the cage eager to be free. Off they went into a hot fall day, hopefully they have enough time to complete a new life cycle.

Over the course of the summer Maya's butterfly cage witnessed lots tears of joy and sadness, as tiny butterfly eggs were observed, caterpillars were hand-fed with leaves, dropped into water, got squashed, then rescued. Surprisingly, most of them did survive our rough-handling and transformed into butterflies. Maya successfully hatched monarchs, painted lady butterflies, tobacco hornworms, an unnamed moth, and finally black swallowtails. Well, the butterfly cage has been emptied, cleaned and packed for the long trip.