Visit to the Butterfly Lodge & Hydroponic Farm - 25/10/2009

Very good books on the life cyle of a butterfly for very young children.

I especially loved the Busy, Busy Butterfly as it is filled with real and big

illustrations accompanied with concise description of

the insect in its various stages.

A list of the species we may spot in the lodge, courtesy of Joycelyn!

Daddy had the honour of holding one of the newly hatched butterflies
and released it into the lodge.

If you look close enough or zoom into the 1st picture at the top left hand corner,
you will spot the butterfly eggs (tiny, white colour spots) on the leaves.
The 2nd picture right next to it shows a hairy caterpillar and the picture with
a few butterflies under them shows the male butterflies engaging in
an activity named "puddling"; we were told that the male butterflies are
absorbing the salt content from the ground which is damp and this will
aid them in increasing their sperm count! Hence, only male butterflies
engaged in this activity. The other 3 pictures show some of the
varieties of butterflies found inside the lodge.

K watches the puddling of the male butterflies.

Daddy showing K a tiny caterpillar,
K & Trishelle in the lodge,
Where are you looking at, darling?

Our 1st kit: sadly both caterpillars died.

In front of one of the many hydroponic vegetation plots before it rained.

Today is a busy day for us because we have arranged to visit Oh's Farm with Joycelyn and family in the late morning and to attend my maternal grandfather's 79th birthday celebration in the late noon.

I wanted to kickstart the series of "Bubba Bear" lessons with butterfly as Krissa is familiar with this insect. I borrowed and read her books from the library and after trawling the web for more information, I learnt that Oh's Farm has a butterfly lodge where the butterflies are kept in an enclosed area, making the study and observation of these beautiful insects much easier. We were very lucky to have met a member from the Butterfly Circle who acted as a guide during our stay in the lodge. We were also very fortunate to be in time to catch the staff releasing some butterflies just hatched from their chrysalis into the lodge. Really, without the explanation from the member (I cannot remember his name, very sorry!), it would have been just a see-see-look-look kind of field trip. Oh, and Joycelyn was very nice to photocopy the species of butterflies which we may see in the lodge (thanks babe!) for us. We had fun in trying to identify as many species as we can find. Each of us bought a caterpillar kit containing 2 caterpillars in the hope that our girls can learn and witness for themselves the magic of mother nature. Included in the kit was also leaves for us to feed the caterpillars with. Alas, my caterpillar died on the 2nd day because the leaves which we were supposed to feed them with had browned. Caterpillars, being fussy eaters (different breed of caterpillars eat different kinds of leaves), would rather starve to death if the leaves are not fresh which sadly happened in my case as we were late in immersing the roots of the leaves in water. I bought a 2nd kit and managed to successfully have one of the caterpillars hatched into a butterly. I had decided to release the butterfly although Krissa was not home yet as I was afraid the butterfly may die if it was kept inside the container for too long a time. Luckily, with the help of my neighbour, I managed to video the whole freeing process to show Krissa. The butterfly was beautiful, a far cry from the ugly hairy caterpillar it once was. The other caterpillar sadly didn't make it. I guess it must have tried too hard to free itself from its chrysalis that the chrysalis snapped and detached itself from the top of the container where it hung. Yes, once the chrysalis drops, you can pronounced the caterpillar dead.

Alright, coming back to Oh's Farm: this farm specialises in hydroponic vegetation and supplies to local supermarkets. We ran out of good luck when we wanted to tour its hydroponic plots for it started to rain. However, before we left the farm, I bought some hydroponic vegetables from its store. The store is opened to members of the public. Imagine a big packet of butterhead lettuce at only $2.00 while the rest of the many varieties of vegetables and herbs go on sale for only $1.00 per packet!

**Credit must be given to my dearest hubs for clearing all the caterpillars' poo and feeding them with fresh leaves everyday till they turned chrysalis :)