Found in the Veggie Garden Eating all the Carrot Tops (and I’m not talking about the comedian)

While examining the veggie garden today, I found this:

I couldn’t help but be totally excited. People, I spent hours digging and planting a flower garden for butterflies last summer. This happens to be on the opposite end of our yard, and we planned on eating the carrots at some point (if they ever get big enough) but whatever. I don’t care. Eat away little caterpillars

Hubs and I started examining the carrots more closely and we found another 3 about the same size.

Plus what looks like it might be a younger sibling:

After doing the obligatory photo shoot, I grabbed my butterfly manuals to try to figure out what these guys are. Based on the photos in the books and the description saying something along the lines of: “if you live east of the continental divide (yep!) and have carrots (yep!) then you will have Eastern Black Swallowtail caterpillars.”

We showed the kids the hungry little caterpillars when they got home from school (and I’m not kidding when I say hungry. The things had eaten a ton in just a few hours!) and they are totally excited to build a habitat for them. That will be a project for tomorrow. We are really hoping to watch them transform into butterflies. I am more than happy to feed them all the carrot tops they can chow down.

Don’t you think their pattern would make really cool beads?

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