Oh my goodness, I thought someone died the way she came to me today (she gets up earlier than I do) and said with such a horrified look on her face, "I have some bad news." I started getting that panicky feeling and wondered what could be so bad. Well, it wasn't super terrible like I was expecting, but it's still sad. She left for work early this morning and she said a chrysalis was dark and she knew the butterfly would emerge today, probably later that morning, so she thought she'd come home and release it shortly after. Instead, she came home to find the butterfly crumpled up in the bottom of the container it was in. We had a stick in for it, but it did not climb up the stick to dry its wings. I said maybe it was deformed from the beginning and falling had nothing to do with its damage. All of the other butterflies that I had fall to the bottom of their containers were able to find the stick in there and climb back up to the top and dry their wings and were fine. She couldn't kill it, so she put it in a flower down on the ground away from where other butterflies would go. I'm afraid it might be diseased, especially after she told me that it has two probcosises. Did anyone hear of such a thing? I was so dang busy today that I didn't even take the time to look at it. I just know it's hanging on the butterfly bush flower that she broke off and stuck in the ground. She is so upset by this and I think she blames herself for not being here when it emerged, but I told her it's not like I was here for it either. We can't watch them 24/7! I tried to tell her that these things just happen sometimes and we did the best we could. I think I'd have trouble killing it myself, so it will probably live out its days on flowers we put down on the ground for it. I hope this isn't being cruel. Even if I'd work up the courage to kill it, I think she'd be mortified if I did.

That's not the only bad thing today. We had some cats in small storage containers for the past week. I'd bring in the eggs on leaves and when they'd hatch I'd put them in the containers with fresh leaves (this is very time-consuming, going through leaves looking for tiny cats). Most of them were big enough today to put into the big cage outside, so that's what my daughter did. I guess she did that before going to work and sat one of the empty containers inside another empty container. I guess she didn't notice a tiny cat that was on the outside of the inner container...it got smashed. I won't even tell her about that or it would just make her feel even worse. I smashed one by accident myself already. It made my sad, but I got over it. I figure the ones I save from predators more than makes up for an occasional mishap. I just hope my daughter will soon get over this feeling she has. She tries to help me when she can, but now I think she thinks she failed but she didn't. I appreciate any help she can give me.

This really wasn't a good day for the Monarchs here at our place because a third incident involved a chrysalis. Well, I didn't really see what happened, but it's missing. I thought that the cats go off of the plants to pupate, but apparently this one didn't read the rules. It pupated on the one milkweed plant in the big cage. I wanted to get it off just because it was down low on the plant and I was afraid that water would get on it when we water the plants or it might accidentally get knocked off sometime. I said about getting it off, but both my husband and daughter said that would be dumb, that I made the cage for convenience and just to let it go...so I did. Well, today it is gone! What could have happened to it? Do cats eat pupas? In that case, how can I be sure nothing will happen to any of the other ones in there (none yet but surely soon will be)?

Cathy