Sunday morning I went and did a little work in the garden, and when I was pulling out one of my dead tomato plants, I found a chrysalis attached to one of the fabric strips. I brought it home and looked it up online, and sure enough, it's a monarch butterfly! I have never found a chrysalis before, ever. So I am pretty excited about watching this thing hatch. Of course, the actual hatching part takes just a minute, and it usually happens in the morning, so it's unlikely I'll witness it -- but I will see a brand-new butterfly! I loosely tied the fabric strip to a pencil, and placed the pencil over the mouth of a big glass pitcher. I covered the top with a round potholder so the future butterfly can get air but not escape until I've gotten it outside.
Anyway, I have a couple of photos. The first one is from yesterday. Note the little gold specks -- they look like actual gold, all metallic and shit. Crazy.



I love that color of green.
Today, after work, I noticed that the chrysalis is already becoming transparent, and you can see the wings a bit:



Pretty neat.