Student Selfies with Caterpillars and Other Notes from a Week

When I think back on this week, what will I remember?  There are two competing events:

The Butterfly Garden

I'll write about this one first, because I have some photos.  I have wanted to do something to beautify the outside area at school since I first realized how many students use the picnic tables and look out onto the concrete wasteland that is the top part of our parking garage:

On Monday, one week after I put out the initial plants, we first spotted the caterpillars in the butterfly garden:

On Tuesday, I realized we'd need more milkweed, the only plants that these caterpillars will eat.  My pastor butterfly gardener expert gave me 3 smaller plants.  From Tuesday to Wednesday, they ate every leaf on the plant.  I made plans to go get more.

I hurried those plans to completion when a student rushed in saying, "Dr. K!  Dr. K!  The caterpillars are escaping.  They're all over the parking lot."

I walked out to see students working to rescue them and put them back on plants.  I went to get them more food.

On the way back, I thought about how I thought this garden had very little success of attracting butterflies, but it would be good to have some green out back.  So far, if we count caterpillars, we've been successful beyond my wildest dreams. 

I've also been happy that others are interested in this adventure.  I had at least one friend who said she didn't think students would care, but it was good that I cared.  However, on Wednesday, students were taking selfies with the caterpillars.  On Friday, we arrived to plants with very few caterpillars.  I had done some research, and I guessed that many of them had crawled away to create a chrysalis.  Sure enough, we found some.

We've been having interesting conversations all week, about the life cycle of butterflies and about what we can and can't do to help the creatures.  I didn't anticipate having conversations about natural selection and survival of the fittest, but we have.

I hope that we have the opportunity to watch at least one of them move from chrysalis to butterfly.  The process seems perilous, but we've counted at least 5 chrysalises that have a good chance.  Maybe we'll even have a different kind of coming out party!


Crown of Sonnets

I wrote a sonnet on Friday; go here to read it.  As I drove to work on Monday, I thought about that sonnet, especially the last line.  I thought about a crown of sonnets.  On Monday, I wrote sonnet #2.

I have continued to write sonnets in the crown, and I just finished sonnet #7.  I'm not sure they'll be of much use later--they are very much tied to the news cycle.  But it's been good practice.  I have never, ever written as many sonnets in one week as I did this past week.

I won't ever think of them as my best work.  But it's been good to feel my brain engaged.

Other

It's been a good week in other ways too:  time with friends, a phone call about candidacy, time in the pool, good meals, and time to read.  Oh yes, and we celebrated Independence Day as a nation.

Tomorrow the camp counselors arrive for our Vacation Bible School week.  Let me think about what still needs to be done in the cottage before they come to town.