The profile of Franklin D. Roosevelt graces the United States dime. Approximately 10 millimeters by 8 millimeters, his head takes up roughly 40 percent of the dime’s surface area.
Keep this in mind. We’ll circle back in a moment…
Standing in a friend’s yard a few weeks ago, in a rare moment of mental clarity and a “hope springs eternal” microcosm of a joy vibe, I had a bright idea.
See… this friend has a massive cluster of milkweed plants taller than me, and I just knew, I knew, if I looked close enough, I’d find caterpillars in all stages of growth and maybe a chrysalis secured under one of the leaves.
I found no such nature on these plants.
Monarch-free.
Well, this won’t do.
Google to the rescue. I remembered doing butterfly science with my kids when they were in elementary school. I didn’t need a kit, though.
I only needed the caterpillars.
But not painted ladies or some other random species.
Monarchs. To eat the milkweed.
I found a company and ordered six caterpillars. And maybe I did this before I asked my friend if she cared that I came out daily to check on the worms and traipse about her yard with my camera.
But, oooh. What fun. I had visions of plucking them from their shipping container, getting some cool pictures of them scaling up my fingers, and then placing them gently on the milkweed leaves—
But wait. What’s this intrusive thought? Birds swooping down to gobble three of them up? And the other three wiggle away and can’t find their way back to the food source?
Well, this won’t do.
So, I ordered a net to cover the milkweed—one that would tie securely around the stem. The six very hungry caterpillars could feast without being feasted upon or accidentally leave the dinner party before their transformation was due.
I was impressed with the company I chose. They watched the weather for the best shipping window and overnighted the package to me.
I opened the box carefully to find a lukewarm ice pack and two very small containers with aerated lids. Between the lids and the clear canister bases was a fine organza mesh—and I do mean super-dee-duper fine.
Little Miss Muse lighted on my shoulder and rubbed her chin as she cocked her head to stare with me. “No expert here, but… six of your chonky striped goblins would not fit in those itttteeeee bitttteeee jars.”
(Little Miss has been miffed at my side quests. She claims I’m procrastinating writing. I claim I’m trying to fill the writing well. I’ve come to accept that we’re both correct…)
I looked through the base of the canisters, and the only thing I could see in either was folded-up leaves.
I unscrewed the lid off one jar and lifted away the mesh. I adjusted my bifocals, and with my nose nearly in the canister, I spotted a single caterpillar clinging to the underside of a leaf, about the size of a baby’s eyelash.
Wincing, and for some reason trying to be quiet about it, I gently replaced the mesh and screwed the lid back on. If that’s the size of these things, I cannot open these jars with three felines running amok in the office.
I gathered the jars and a plain white napkin and headed to the sunroom, where I could shut out the kitty supervisors and have good light.
All told, once each leaf was examined multiple times from all angles and the jars were completely emptied, I had three viable caterpillars, lots of black flecks, and a few spots of fresh green poo-goo on the napkin.
Turns out if I’d left it alone, the poo-goo would eventually turn into the black flecks. (The name for this is frass… you’re welcome).
These babies were so tiny, you could place all three on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s head and they’d have room to invite a dozen or more friends of equal size for Party on the Coin.
Back to my lofty joy vision…
Um.
Yeah.
I’ve gone from hoping to release six chonky worms directly from their shipping container into the relatively safe, netted wild to building an indoor, cat-proof nursery for three green eyelashes and harvesting fresh milkweed daily.
Which brings me to another fun fact: The milky stuff that milkweed excretes is a form of latex that seals up the plant’s wound. So to keep it fresh, you have to go through a whole process if you want to put it in water. And if you put it in water, you can’t just let the babies have it all willy-nilly, because they’ll fall off the leaves and, well.
This won’t do.
The water for the milkweed must be tightly covered.
Or just use fresh leaves daily.
At this point, though, I’m no longer only worried about birds and a little lost wiggle worm. I’m worried about spiders, large black ants, and a rogue sneeze that would send my little green globs of… joy? flying into the nether regions of the yard or onto a cat’s back, never to be seen again.
So indoor rearing has begun. With a promise flung to Little Miss Muse that we will attempt to write as many words per day on our current work-in-stalled-out-progress as the number of daily milkweek leaves harvested.
I’ll let you know in a few weeks about the progress—the monarchs and the manuscript.
Much like how the rest of life is going, we can toss the coin: It’ll be a tiny spot of joy—or it’ll be a lesson.
