When we picked her up the "Butterfly Lady" had given each of the girls their own caterpillar for different local butterflies. Elli had chosen a Monarch. We left with our caterpillar clinging to his small branch of milkweed with only 3 leaves left on it with instructions to put him in a Ziploc type container holes in the lid and to feed him lots of milkweed.
Not wanting to buy a whole milkweed plant (probably costing upwards of $20 that I didn't have) I was in a panic. Where was I going to get more food for our new pet? He was NOT going to make it with the 3 measly leaves we had been given. And then it came to me. Our Girl Scout troop built a butterfly garden last year at a local elementary school, we could drop him off there on one of the many milkweed plants. So I called our troop leader D and sure enough we had plenty of milkweed to house and feed our new friend "Carle", Ellie named him after Eric Carle, author of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". The only problem was the gates to the school were locked over the weekend and we couldn't get to the garden until Monday. Now what?
Luckily D reminded me that the local Nature Center had tons of it growing throughout AND it was free to get in. So the new plan was to go to the Sawgrass Nature Center and pick up a few branches of milkweed while we take a peak at the animals they have rescued there. This would be enough to tide us over until we could get to the butterfly garden on Monday.
So off we went not knowing what to expect. I didn't know what milkweed looked like and D said it was growing all over there. We asked in the office if it was ok to get a few branches and they said "Sure, If you see any out there". Great! None of the bushes were labeled but I did recognize a few of them as being ones that attract butterflies. We grabbed a few branches from each and made our way back home where we put holes in a plastic container and welcomed Carle to his new home with some fresh leaves.
Sunday went by fine but I noticed that Carle was only eating from the original branch of leaves that we were given and hadn't (or wouldn't) touch the new branches. I guess we didn't find milkweed after all. Ellie seemed content to watch him move around his container and talk to him like a dog/cat calling him over to the side.
Monday morning as I was preparing lunches for school I decided to check in on Carle to make sure he was still hanging in there so that I could go drop him off while the kids were at school. Much to my surprise (maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised but I was rooting for him to hang in there) Carle was laying on his side shriveled up to about half the size he was the night before, and not moving. No one even checked on him that morning so I didn't say anything until after school when Ellie finally noticed. She looked into the container, tapped it a little, and then walked away hiding her face from me as she wiped away the tears from her eyes trying not to let me see her cry. I stopped her and explained that we tried but we got the wrong food and there was nothing more we could have done and assured her that this was something that she could cry about. It was ok to be sad. So she cried for a few minutes while Benny gave me a sad hug because he overheard us talking about it. Later that evening I got Ellie's attention and asked if it was ok if I emptied the container and she tearfully shook her head yes. Now Carle is heading to the landfill with the Hollywood sign on top of it.
Dearest Carle, we miss you so. What will we ever do without you. RIP.
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