The caterpillar

This is the story of my small ecosystem on my 3rd floor patio.

The first plant that my friend got me as a gift was a one gallon yellow hibiscus.  The specific variety with a bright red dot in the center of the large yellow flower.  

This small hibiscus plant grew up really fast on my patio, facing the sunny south
side of the building.  Soon I had to move it to a larger and larger planter.  It is now taller than me!

I often see a visitor flying in to suck the yellow flower, an amazing humming
bird.  It is absolutely stunning to see this tiny little bird fluttering in the air!

I had other plants on the very same patio: a red geranium that I had to cut back, a rose Bush that did not last, a white jasmine. 

My new friend Gail moved to the area a few years ago.  She told me she moved
in with her daughter who has a large corner house.  They have a large
garden with many trees and a vegetable garden.  I am so envious of people
with gardens!  In front of the house they have a bunch of milkweed plants.  You know these long green leaves that monarch butterfly worms like to feed on.  Generous Gail gave me a small pot with a milkweed plant one day.  I happily brought it home and transferred it to a planter, added extra soil and watered it.

The milkweed grew and grew and looked beautiful, until one day I noticed the fresh
green leaves were almost gone.  On one of the eaten branches I saw a large
beautiful striped caterpillar!  

Perfect stripes of curling yellow black and white. It was fat and quite amazing.
I got so excited I immediately took its photo and sent to all my friends and my
sons.  I kept on going out to the patio and checking on it.  A few hours later I saw it crawling out of the planter and this was also such a new sight, a fat beautiful striped caterpillar crawling around with its antennae’s moving up in the air. What was it looking for?  Later on I saw it up on the patio wall.  In the end it disappeared.  I never saw the chrysalis or the butterfly.

Did the humming bird have a feast?