Getting Bigger and Finding More

The two caterpillars are growing...here's a photo of one today.  S/he is about half way to maturity.

June 8
On my 15 minute afternoon break I found a tiny caterpillar in the fields next to the Questar buildings.  Since I bicycled to work, I bicycled home, hoping not to squeezed it in my backpack.  At home it appeared somewhat squished, although it moved when I put it in the caterpillar safehouse; that's what I'm calling "it."  I don't like the word "cage."  From years past, I've learned that caterpillars are eaten, crushed, mowed over or subject to many other kinds of demises, so I put them in a "safe house" where they can grow, go into their chyrsallis and then be released as beautiful butterflies. 

June 9
Since I found one caterpillar yesterday, I went back to fields again on my 15 minute break, where I found another one!  I also found a friend, Michelle, who was working in the building right there; she wondered what I was finding in the fields next to her workplace.  I promised to find a caterpillar for her tomorrow, and share the blog with her.

Then, I came home and found three caterpillars in our own backyard!  That is my very favorite place to find them.  The waterfall seems to attract the butterflies, and when I looked on the leaves of the milkweed plants growing next to it, I found their babies, the caterpillars.  One is microscopic.

That makes a total of four found today.  Combined with the one yesterday and the two that hatched from the two eggs Julie found and gave me, I have seven caterpillars so far and no casualties.