Ollie & Archie

Editor’s Note: Loving grandparents and parents turn a young boy’s summer into surprise and wonder, with this intimate awareness of nature’s miracles, setting him on the path to becoming a loving, curious, happy, and knowledgeable adult human being. 

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It all started on August 7th. Grandson Oliver, 5 years old, suggested that we look for Monarch Butterfly eggs on the milkweeds in our back yard. I had planted three different types of milkweed in order to attract butterflies. So far, we’d seen butterflies but no eggs.

Oliver is observant. He looked under several leaves and then froze. There’s one! His eyes were about an inch from the underside of one leaf. There was a very tiny barrel-shaped white egg. Can we hatch it? He asked, trembling with excitement. We could try, I replied.

Luckily Oliver’s mom, Rebecka, is creative, loving and always ready for a challenge. She and I searched for potential rearing pens for this, and future butterfly eggs and caterpillars. We decided on glass or clear plastic jars with temporary cheesecloth lids. They carefully transferred the precious egg on its leaf to its pen.

Oliver and I began our research, sitting on our couch, glued to YouTube, watching videos of the miraculous journey these tiny beings were embarking on. No promises, just hope.

Soon the egg hatched and the little “Archie” as he was named, immediately ate his eggshell to get his stomach ready for food. Oliver examined the tiny newborn with a 10x magnifier.

He was tiny, but he began to chew holes in the leaves we put in his pen. Fresh leaves were needed twice a day! He left big dark droppings. We need to clean the jar!

And then, suddenly, Archie stopped eating. He climbed up to the top of his pen, where Rebecka had thoughtfully placed a stick, and as its last act as a larva, spun some silk from its mouth to make a little silk button on the stick, almost like the woolly part of Velcro. Then Archie turned around, and attached himself to that button with “hook Velcro” on his rear end. Then he could hang quietly head down in the form of a “J”. Before too long, he shed his skin and, like a magician, transformed into a beautiful green chrysalis.

From our research, we had learned that a big fat caterpillar already has special “discs” inside it that have everything needed to make a butterfly. The disc that will become wings actually looks like miniature wings. Likewise, there are discs for sticklike legs, big eyes, and even a curly proboscis (tongue), all ready to pop out and expand when the larva, seemingly quiet, rearranges itself into a butterfly.

Archie’s chrysalis turned black; he must be almost ready! The chrysalis is decorated with golden dots worthy of a Pharaoh. But they are not decorations – they are receptors for light, so the new butterfly will break out at the right time. He wouldn’t want to come out in the middle of the night, would he?

We saw the fat abdomen that quivered and pumped fluid into Archie’s crumpled wings, that gradually took form. Finally he was free to stretch out, dry those wings, try out his new curly tongue and hold on tight with spindly claws.

When Archie spread his wings outside, Oliver knew that his butterfly is a boy; he has two black dots on the veins of his hind wings. Oliver whispered, I wish he would let me hold him in my hand.

To everyone’s surprise, Archie fluttered awkwardly but determinedly to Oliver’s hand. He rested silently and then Archie spread his wings wide. Oliver whispered, I am so proud of you … I am so proud of you…

And so, an egg Oliver found on August 7th, and raised lovingly for 23 days, turned into this beautiful butterfly that aimed high and found a sunflower for his first taste of nectar.

Copyright © 2025 Ann Sigford