I am bun

My friend Helen has been doing all sorts of courses lately which means that she goes off to learn different things and she has got some more coming up soon that are one of her favourites which is jewellery and mainly silver stuff. So she is also doing stuff for herself at home as practice and that means yesterday she was cutting out stuff with a little saw and today she has been doing lots of hammering with her little hammer and because it is very hot today and I have got the doors in my room open into the garden and she is working in the kitchen it is like it is happening right outside and it is making me a bit fed up but it would be alright if she was making something for me though and hopefully that will be next.

Oh dear. My friend Helen was so pleased with the last lot that she got some different ones and they was called Peacocks and they was much more interesting and lively than the other ones and we was enjoying watching them and waiting for them to do their change but something terrible has happened. They have got a nasty virus which is a disease like the bunflu only much worse and they look like they will all die. Now we do not know where they did get it from but we do not think it would have been on the stingy nettles because they come from the graveyard and that is not sprayed or nothing and is all organic so they might have had it when they arrived and it just took some time to happen. Anyway my friend Helen is very very sad about it even though it is not her fault and she was looking after them very well (and ignoring me a bit too much!) and now she is worried about when her big moth catterpiller comes because she was just getting allexcited about her new hobby.

Some more happy news though is that some of my carrots have started to come up and my friend Helen says that we must "thin them out" which means throw some away which I do not much like the sound of but she says otherwise the ones that are left will not be able to grow properly.

It has been so nice lately that I have been even more slow than usual doing my blog and so this is all a few days ago now. First of all my friend Helen filled the new mighty carrot box with dirt and we planted them at last.

There is not so much room but we put lots of different kinds in so there would be a choice and anyway some might be quicker to grow than the others so maybe they will last for longer and I had to do some sticks with names on so we did not forget which is which. They are Early Nantes which is supposed to be first and Sugarsnax which is a silly name but they are long and thin and extra sweet apparently then there was some Chantenay which are littler ones and some Sementi which are supposed to be giant size! Anyway they have not poked up their heads yet but I am hoping for something soon because the weather has been so nice and also I am making sure my friend Nick has been watering them because my friend Helen is away for a bit again at her health farn that she likes to go to.

I think I have said before that my friend Helen has got a friend who is called Tamsin and she was having a look through her stuff and found some stickers that she had bought a long time ago when she was on a visit to Japan or it might have been Hong Kong I cannot remember now but anyway she said that I could have them and here is what they look like

so I will say thankyou very much for that which was kind and now I need to send some cards or something so I can stick them on and then people will know that they are from Bun!

On tuesday when the weather was nice and sunny it was time to let all the butterflies go so we took the whole net housey thing out into the garden and then my friend Helen opened the top and used a clothes peg to keep it open.

First of all they was all very excited but did not know what to do and then one of them went out and flew up in the air high as high and suddenly the rest got the idea from him and followed in a line up and up until there was just one left and that one was a bit reluctant as if it was saying "but wait I did not finish my orange yet!" still in the end it went too although it did not go high like the others and then they was all gone. My friend Helen was very pleased although I thought they was a bit rude not to say thankyou or anything and here is a picture of the last one on a flower just after when it was resting and getting its bearings probably.

I have got a picture of the empty chrysalis things that they left behind which is very interesting but is all covered in blood stuff so I think I will leave that picture out because the last one of the butterfly is nicer.

Yesterday my friend Nick was sitting in the sun in the garden and reading his book and one came back and fluttered about for a bit so it is good to know they are still about and that they are happy and can visit if they want to and now we are waiting for some more which is called Peacocks and live on stingy nettles and there are some of those in the graveyard so that should be good for them and also the barking moth one which is not ready yet apparently.

Yes I have finally got to do my blog again and I was starting to think it was never going to be written down. A lot has happened with our butterflies and here is just the best bits.
All the week the caterpillers had been eating and eating and they was growing so fast until they was really really fat

then last saturday when I tried to get my friend Nick to help me write about it before and he was too flipping lazy the caterpillers started to change and we nearly missed it but my friend Helen was obsessed and kept a close watch and it was just as well because we saw they all did a letter "J" first and hung upside down from the ceiling. Then their heads splitted open! We watched them and it was amazing because they wriggled about and their skin all got scrunched up at the top and they was turned into a chrysalis! They did not have any feet any more or eyes or heads or nothing and was just a browny shell thing and they also did poo out a little red blob too. They could still wriggle about though and eventually most of them looked like this and the skinny bit fell off completely

Two of the caterpillers was a bit slower than the other three and one was making a right nuisance and kept bothering the first ones that had already started to turn and they all wriggled and thumped him and he was trying to hang off of them and have a ride I think and using two of them as a swing. But in the end he stopped and changed as well until eventually they all had all done it and calmed down for a rest and it was time for them to go in their next house which is like a meshy thing

My friend Helen did get them out then and pinned them inside

but not too high up because they still wriggle sometimes and they can fall off apparently and it was just as well because during the night one of them did!

So this weekend we had started to think they was going to sleep forever and my friend Helen was starting to have nightmares about giant atomic moth things that was part owl and part robot and was hatching out and my friend Nick was shouting at her saying "quick get a photo for Bun's blog!" but anyway then this morning my friend Helen had a look and they was still in their shells but when my friend Nick got up for a wee he saw that one had already come out! We was very surprised but then my friend Helen watched carefully until another one started to come out and so we saw it happen from the start and it was so quick really but still it was very interesting to see. They split open at the head end again and along the back and then they wriggled out but it was a bit harder this time because now they had got some legs back and also wings of course which was all scrumpled and I thought they looked like me when I wake up and I have got bed ears and they was a bit wobbly too

but they soon made their wings straight and stiff and their antennas too and then they have to spend some time making their tongues go from two bits to one bit and it can curl up as well. So now there is three out already and we think that the others will come out tomorrow and my friend Helen has put some sugar water stuff on a tissue in the cage thing with them and also she has gone out and bought them an orange to eat which they do like apparently. They are called Painted Ladies

They have made the inside look a bit like CSI though because they have to squirt out some sort of stuff that is like blood and their are big blobs of it everywhere now. Hopefully tomorrow the weather will pick up a bit because once they are all out and done their stretching and stuff and exercised their wings it will be time to let them go into the garden and they can fly away and that will be the best part I think.

In other news, my friend Helen has spent all yesterday fiddling with the carrot box that she got her brother to make because it was a bit too big for where it is going in the garden and my friend Nick was being rotten and would not help but she did it in the end and now we are ready to plant them at last!

I have been checking lots of other blogs from everyone already today and I will do a post later because my friend Nick that usually does help me has been busy all week and I have not been able to even read with him until today but now he is home and so I can pester him :¬)

On tuesday my friend Helen did get her caterpillers and they was so small I could not hardly see them and I thought that it was a trick and she had been sold just a stinky pot but I have been checking every day and they was in there after all. They are growing very very fast and so here are some pictures that show it.
The first one is from thursday

then I did not do one on friday but there is a picture from saturday

and one from today

and they are quite fat now! Like I said they came in a little plastic pot with some holes in the lid and I was expecting some leaves or something as well but it was just some browny stuff at the bottom that they eat that my friend Nick says looks like dripping whatever that is but anyway it seems to be alright and they do not seem to be bothered about leaving their poo everywhere neither. They have also done webs all over which I did not know that caterpillers did and my friend Helen says that soon they will be turning into something else that is called a chrysalis and then they will be butterflies that are called painted ladies and we must let them go still I hope that they do not come back and eat all the plants in the garden though. My friend Helen has already ordered another different one because she has found them very interesting but this time it is a big moth so I think that there is just the one caterpiller and it is supposed to rear up and do barking like a dog if it is upset for any reason so if it is a good one I will do pictures of that too and I will try not to upset it too much :¬)

My friend Nick has been doing a lot of work this week so he is very tired when he comes home but now it is worse because after he was laughing at the pink people down the road that had been in the sun too much he has got quite pink arms himself but it is not from the sun. He has been doing welding which he says means it is when you stick bits of metal together and because of that he has got sunburn on his arms and he looks funny but it is a bit sore too. I have told him he must wear a shirt with proper long sleeves.

My friend Helen has had a go at doing gooseberry jam with some flowers in it but it has not set again even though this time she did use the proper sugar for jam making and everything and she is a bit upset about it so she is going to have a go at boiling it up again because she says she has lost her jam making mojo.

As a rule I am all in favour of presents especially if they are for me but my friend Helen's mum has got her a present and she is very excited but I am not so sure. It is a special house for hatching out butterflies and things and it has got a website that you can buy all the eggs of all different ones from and the right food for them to grow into caterpillers and then into butterflies and that is all ok except my friend Helen has done nothing but complain about the caterpillers that are eating all her plants in the garden! My friend Nick says it will probably turn out like this

but I hope it does not because parakeets is bad enough :¬D

There is the FA Cup for football on telly at the moment and they have just said it is forty one degrees in the sunshine which is very hot indeed! They showed a picture of the crowds and they were all sitting in the sun on one side and so I hope they did think to put lots of suncream on because I have not spotted any sunhats and they are looking really really red already :¬D

My friend Helen asked who I will support and so I have said that I will support Everton because they did beat my team to get to the final and also they are the underdog or maybe the under-rabbit which is always good to give a cheer on I think but they are doing quite well so far even without my help.

My friend Helen's mum is going to come and stay for a couple of days and it is a bit tricky because we have got only a very small house that is just big enough for us and no more so my friend Nick will sleep in the front room on the floor and my friend Helen will share our bed with her mum. We have got a new foamy mattress thing because the airy bed got a leak and I reckon I might have to sleep with my friend Nick too just in case there is no room in our proper bed and he has said that my friend Helen must sleep on his side of the bed because he does not want "old lady smell" on it and also my friend Helen is not allowed to wear any of her creams because he says he does not want her to "grease up his side of the sheets". He is very picky even more than I am but at least I will be able to sit up late and watch telly which we will also have to record probably the Britain's Got Talent that I have been watching because my friend Helen's mum will most likely want to talk with her. I think it is a bit easier when she goes and visits her mum at her own house but at least it is supposed to be going to be sunny so we have got the garden that they can all sit in :¬)