Crazy in Caterpillar Town

The caterpillars are now 11 days old (as caterpillars- it's been 13 days since their eggs were laid on my milkweed)...

Eddie Murphy is about 2 inches long!
Go ahead and laugh at my trade-show-free-giveaway Stressometer ruler...
it's the only one I can fit into their container ;P

I'll admit, for the first week, things weren't as interesting after their initial emergence from the eggs. They ate. They pooped a lot of little poops. They seemed to sleep a lot, or maybe were just in a constant flux of eat, food coma, eat, food coma. I gave them fresh leaves every day not because they were comsuming everything, but to be sure the leaves were tender and moist enough for them to enjoy.

Then we went on our road trip. They were eating enough at that time to concern me about leaving them at home without fresh leaves. I had a single floral vial that I found in one of my grandmother's planters, but had never used it before, and wasn't sure how long it could keep the leaves fresh. (It turns out it kept a branch of leaves fresh for about 3 days, which was awesome!)

We returned from the road trip and... this week, things started to change. The caterpillars are growing MUCH faster and eating much more...

This picture was taken yesterday morning. By the evening, these were about an inch and a half long. And as you can see from the top photo, taken today, they're at about 2 inches.

According to most of what I'vr read, the caterpillars are caterpillars for about 2 weeks before they pupate, so that should be happening within the next few days! Their big screened in container JUST arrived in the mail, but I have too much work to do to assemble it this very minute. I'm excited to get them in there later tonight and also to see just how big they get before they're done growing!!!