My butterfly story...I raised a Monarch butterfly

This is not mini related but "More" as my blog says. My caterpillar was too hard to photograph so I got this picuture from the w.w.w.  Mine looked just like this only smaller. Scroll and see the pictures that I took of my butterfly's stages of development.

My caterpillar was kept in a quart jar. It was about 1 inch long when I found it. There was a bunch of milkweed leaves in there to eat. It ate and ate milkweed for a few days and then when it was time it craweled to the top of the foil cover and turned upside down and curled into a "J" ready to shed it's skin and become a chrysalis...wish I had caught that stage..missed it but I have seen it in the past and it is something to see! This is my picture. Click on each picture to see it bigger 

Here's what the chrysalis looks like a beautiful shiney green with shiney gold spots on it.
but this one  is also from the web because it's a better picture from the other side...click on the pic to see the glorious colors!
After nine days it looks like this...See the butterfly's beautiful colors and it's tiny wings?

The chrysalis is darker, the colors are showing some air pockets are forming so it will come out today!! It's about 7am right now.

 It's now about 8:45 am. It has just come out of the chrysalis! Notice the wrinkled wings! This is another stage I have watched when it first breaks open and it happens in a blink of an eye! This is what you should see when it comes out..another web picture


This is my picture

 
The wings are getting flatter bigger and stronger.
I had to leave for 2 hours but

I came home and it's much stronger and climbing on my finger
after another hour it's ready to fly now.

ooops he just made his first test flight...

I let it go in the flowers. FREE AT LAST!!!

see this link for a video of the birth...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt-5lS9hJFA&NR=1

I wanted to a picture of him flying away but he was too fast for me!!! Don't you just love the beautiful butterflies? God chose to use His creation to tell His story of a transformed life. God used the butterfly to help me understand this truth in the Bible. "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new" 2 Corinthains 5:17 This is the picture story of being born again, from a stage of lowly life of sin and bondage, fome darkness to light, to becoming free in Christ to fly free in His love and service! I was born again Oct 6, 1979 my life was transformed and I became brand new in Christ Jesus.