
I have been thinking about the Eric Carle's children's classic about caterpillars. Our custodian Katherine and I have been carefully monitoring the emerging stages of a Monarch butterfly family forming in the milkweed plant in back of our church kitchen. A few weeks ago, Katherine photographed a beautiful Monarch butterfly laying her eggs and then had camera in hand when the resulting caterpillars appeared - thirteen of them. But the caterpillars managed to chew up most of the milkweed vegetation and when we viewed them last week, they had a look that said, "Is this all you have?” We didn't want "very hungry caterpillars," so I rushed over to Farm and Garden Nursery and came back with three more milkweed plants. The caterpillars were pleased and started munching away. As I wait for the next stage, I have been re-reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and hoping that I will get to see the metamorphosis from "hungry caterpillar" to "beautiful butterfly."
Diane Happy
Diane Happy