A Butterfly Named Braveheart

Photos and story by Krista J Holmes-Storey

A Butterfly Named Braveheart

A story about friendship.

Written & Published by Krista Storey

E-mail: ProgressiveSolutions1964@gmail.com

ISBN #978-1-7777381-0-5

Printed by Elite Printing, Orillia, Ontario, Canada

Copyright 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author.

Printed in Canada

This book is dedicated to all those who followed Braveheart’s journey, my family and friends who helped get our story onto these pages and, of course, to Braveheart for bringing us light during the darkness.

This is Krista. She loves all creatures like dogs and birds and squirrels and bees and especially butterflies.

So much so, her friends started to call her The Butterfly Lady.

She loves to stand in the middle of the garden with her camera and watch all the insects coming and going. There are dragonflies, bees, butterflies, moths and insects she has never even seen before. She likes taking pictures of their little faces.

In the summertime, the Monarch butterflies return from warmer climates to lay their eggs on the milkweed plants. The female Monarch lays hundreds of tiny eggs the size of the tip of a pencil.

Wow!

They attach their eggs to the underside of the milkweed leaves.

In about four days, the eggs hatch into tiny little caterpillars.

After they hatch, all they do is eat milkweed leaves ..... and poop!

They just eat and poop!

All that munching makes the caterpillar very chubby. Within ten days, with its full belly, it will find a hiding place in the shade to build its chrysalis.

First, they hang upside down in the shape of the letter

By the next day there is a shiny, green chrysalis in its place. The Butterfly Lady is always excited to see so many chrysalids hanging on the fence, under garden leaves, under the deck and even on the garden hose.

Sometimes she moves them to a safer location to keep them out of harm’s way.

Every day she checks on the chrysalids around the yard. At first, they are a beautiful green with pretty specks of gold. Then, they turn from bright green to blue, until the butterfly’s wings can be seen through the chrysalis shell.

It will soon be time to hatch.

After one or two weeks, when the time is right, a beautiful Monarch butterfly hatches. She loves watching the new butterfly emerge. It is a miracle every time.