the wildlife on our patio

If you were around last year and this spring, you might remember the caterpillars and subsequent butterflies we observed on our little urban-oasis-patio.
We planted parsley again this year. Black swallow-tail butterflies lay their eggs on parsley because the caterpillars LOVE it. (And fresh parsley is so yummy to cook with... a must have in any culinary herb garden.)
Anyhow, while washing some fresh-picked parsley this week, I discovered a tiny yellow egg on the bottom of one leaf (I wish I would have taken a photo of it). I set that leaf aside in a container to see if it would produce a caterpillar. We didn't have to wait long. A tiny caterpillar emerged from the egg and it is devouring parsley and growing as quickly as it can. Here it is, one day old, note the penny just below:Stay tuned.

Also, check out my other blog to see the creative project of the weekend.

Goodbye parsley

We have a little herb garden on our patio. All of the herbs have done well this year, maybe a little too well. The gigantic bush of parsley has been taken over by five hungry caterpillars! They are munching away, depleting our supply of parsley by several leaves daily.

When we discovered the intruders, we looked them up right away to see if they were friend or foe. They will become black swallow tail butterflies. Friends. (Last year we had a tomato plant-eating moth caterpillar with parasitic wasp larvae hatching out of it. Foe.) This species especially loves herbs in the parsley family.

Alli named them all: Megan, Jessica, Elijah, Annaliese and Lucy. Ruby hasn't hurt them so far. We check on them daily and stare at them under the magnifying glass. They can eat an entire parsley leaf in less than a minute. They are growing more plump everyday. We are excited to watch them change into butterflies.

Stay tuned for more exciting news about our caterpillar pets.