Butterfly Season the Magical Experience of Raising and Releasing Monarch Butterflies
It’s that time of year when you know fall is just around the corner, but the oppressive heat of August and early September continues to remind us that Virginia summers like to linger a little longer than we think they should. The calendar may be hinting at fall, but the air says otherwise. And yet, there are signs.
Yesterday, one of those signs appeared as a Facebook memory. It was a simple photograph of our youngest daughter, all of four-years-old, with a beautiful Monarch butterfly resting on her hand. The wonder on her face says everything about what we were all feeling in that moment. She looked at that butterfly as if she'd been entrusted with something extraordinary. And really, she had.
Seeing that picture instantly took me back to a time that, as a relatively new empty nester, I’ll freely admit I’m a little homesick for. Those busy years of parenting little ones - the school and preschool schedules, playdates, carpools, activities, friendships formed with the parents of the children on those playdates, and days so full that you sometimes wondered if you would ever have a quiet moment again. A new season has arrived in my life, and every now and then my momma heart aches for those very full days. Maybe that is why the Facebook memory caught me the way it did. Because it is butterfly season. More specifically, it is Monarch season. And I’m so pleased to know that even though my little girls are no longer little, they are still fascinated by the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly.
It Started With Milkweed
Years ago, my mother-in-law suggested that I buy some milkweed from the nursery and plant it in our yard to attract Monarch butterflies. I almost always follow my mother-in-law’s lead because she truly is a sage. So I dutifully bought the milkweed and planted it.
Then she gave us our first butterfly habitat - one of those accordion-style mesh butterfly cages that seemed rather novel at the time and now, of course, can arrive on your doorstep the next day courtesy of Amazon.
Many schoolchildren these days get to witness the butterfly life cycle through Painted Lady butterfly kits, which are wonderful and readily available online. But Monarch season is a little different. You can’t simply order the experience in a box. You have to be ready for them. The milkweed has to be waiting. The habitat needs to be nearby. Then you watch and wait, and it's something truly remarkable when you understand where those butterflies are headed.
Each fall, Monarchs in eastern North America begin an extraordinary migration south. Some travel as many as 3,000 miles from Canada and the United States to the high mountain forests of central Mexico, where they spend the winter clustered in trees. Perhaps most amazing of all, the generation making that long fall journey has never made the trip before. They are the great or great-great-grandchildren of the Monarchs that began the journey north the previous spring. Somehow, these delicate creatures know where to go.
This makes the tiny caterpillars appearing on a humble milkweed plant in a Virginia backyard seem even more miraculous.
And Then, You Wait
We were lucky that first year. And for many years afterward, we were ready. Milkweed planted. Butterfly cage on hand. All we had to do was wait for caterpillars. It feels like magic. One day, you’re looking at the lowly milkweed, plain, a little scraggly, and honestly not very exciting. Then suddenly you begin to notice tiny dots on the leaves.
The next day, there they are - the tiniest, perfectly formed Monarch caterpillars. That’s when the operation begins. You carefully cut a few stalks of milkweed that hold those baby caterpillars and place them inside the habitat. And then you wait. And you feed them. And you feed them some more. And you quietly pray that you do not run out of milkweed before they move into the chrysalis stage. Because Monarch caterpillars eat a lot of milkweed. Eventually, though, one will make its way to the top of the habitat, attach itself, and begin another seemingly impossible transformation.
The Monarch chrysalis is something to behold. It is the most stunning shade of green, smooth and ringed near the top with tiny metallic-looking gold spots. It resembles a jewel.
And once the chrysalis is formed, you wait again.
When you have little children, the waiting can become excruciating. “Are they ready?” “Do you think it will happen today?” “When will they be butterflies?”
We would check the habitat constantly, hoping to catch a caterpillar at the exact moment it transformed into a chrysalis. But we never got to see that part. It always seemed to happen just beyond our gaze. Eventually, though, the brilliant green chrysalis begins to darken, and soon you realize that you are starting to see the butterfly inside. First you see the orange and black, and then the delicate veining of those unmistakable Monarch wings becomes clear.
You can actually see the butterfly taking shape inside something that, only days before, held a caterpillar. It seems impossible, but there it is, happening right in front of you.
Eventually, the chrysalis opens and out comes a butterfly that seems far too large to have ever fit inside that tiny shell. But you still can’t let it go. Not yet. The newly emerged Monarch needs time to hang quietly while its wings expand, strengthen, and dry. Try explaining patience at that particular moment to little girls who have spent days feeding caterpillars, inspecting chrysalises, and waiting for this exact moment.
But the waiting matters.
Eventually you know it’s time because the butterflies begin flitting around inside the habitat. And then comes the moment everyone has been waiting for - the release. Little hands reach carefully inside, and a butterfly rests for just a moment on a finger. Then those beautiful orange-and-black wings lift into the air, and off it goes. Your butterflies take off into a world much bigger than the safe little habitat where you fed them and watched over them and worried about them and waited for them to be ready.
There’s definitely a metaphor here.
Butterflies Come Back
This week, more than twenty years after those first butterfly seasons, my oldest daughter called me. She is almost 26 now. She was thrilled to tell me about her caterpillars.
She has planted milkweed. She has been feeding caterpillars for the past couple of weeks. She is watching and waiting and hoping, just as she did when she was a little girl.
And, perhaps my favorite part, she is calling and texting her Nana, too - continuing to share with her the magic of the Monarch miracle that Nana first introduced to us all those years ago.
Traditions don’t always announce themselves when they begin. Sometimes they look like a grandmother suggesting a plant at the nursery. You don’t necessarily realize, while you’re living those moments, that they are becoming part of your family's story. A mesh butterfly cage. A scraggly stalk of milkweed. A four-year-old girl holding out her hand. And then twenty years pass. The little girls grow up. The oldest decides to plant her own milkweed. She finds her own caterpillars, and she calls you because she can hardly wait to tell you about them.
Maybe motherhood is a little like raising Monarchs. You feed and watch and worry and wait. You create the safest little habitat you possibly can. You marvel at the transformation happening right in front of you, even when it feels far too fast. And then, eventually, you have to trust that those wings are ready. You open the door and let them fly. You can rest assured that they carry a bit of magic with them.
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