Butterfly Release

Today Carolyn and I celebrated Earth Day at Shangri La Gardens.

Because everyone who knows me knows that I totally celebrate Earth Day.

(Except I didn't actually know it was Earth Day or even close to Earth Day until we got there and a man from the Sierra Club told me so.  He gave me a free pen, so I tried not to glare at him too much.)

The reason we drove all the way out there was because there was supposed to be a butterfly release.

A BUTTERFLY RELEASE!

Doesn't that sound magical?!

I pictured each of the kids getting a tiny box with a butterfly struggling to get out.

And when all of the boxes were opened, how majestic would it be to see all of those hundreds of butterflies take flight at one time?!

Lovely!

Instead, what it really was was butterflies that had been refrigerated (so as not to cause them any distress...um, I would totally be distressed if someone put me in a fridge overnight, thank-you-very-much), in little paper envelopes.

We were to release them on the count of three to suck on the orange slices that had been placed in the grass.

We also had to shout HAPPY EARTH DAY!  And clap loudly so the butterflies would not immediately become breakfast for the circling birds.

Well, we opened the papers (we had like six since there weren't very many people there) and waited...

And waited....

And then finally, we had to kind of flick the butterflies off because they weren't moving at all and I was sure they were dead.

Carolyn was disappointed that all of the butterflies were orange, not the purple she'd asked for.

After a while, they finally started to move a little, but not a single one of them flew into the sky, they just stayed in the grass like they were stunned while children with sticky fingers (mine included) tried repeatedly to handle them.

This is what it looked like:

There would have been more photos (because I know you're thinking that forty-seven is not enough), but like an idiot, I forgot to charge my camera battery last night.

We also got to meet Maxine, the barred owl, which I was quite thrilled with, but which bored Carolyn to tears, so we left.