i thought cattwo had drowned this morning because i saw it at the bottom of the jar, but it was still on a piece of leaf, surrounded by its own droppings. i guess it got hungry from all that roaming around it did last night and ate most of the milkweed in the jar. so the first thing i did was go down to my garden and finally pick off a piece of fresh milkweed leaf for it to eat. chances are it wouldn't eat much if any, but at least it'd give it a platform to crawl up and hopefully find a spot to transition at the bottom of the lid.

the leaf that i picked turned out to be longer than the jar, so i had to fold the tip a bit in order to fit. but i was worried that cattwo wouldn't know how to get to the lid bottom so i snipped off the tip with a pair of scissors.

cattwo did eat some of the new leaf near the top before it finally crawled back onto the glass and onto the lid bottom around 1:30pm, where hopefully it will pupate. cattwo is special because it was raised on milkweeds from 4 different sources: fresh pond, belmont claypit pond, mondamin court, and my own community garden. with such a varied diet, hopefully it will grow up big and strong. and it's turning into a chrysalis right on schedule, as it was nearly 2 weeks ago that cattwo first hatched (it seems longer than that).

in the afternoon i was in belmont weeding the crabgrass and patching up the bare spots with grass filler. my father helped me water and then afterwards he mowed the lawn.

after dinner i immediately went home, first making a stop at the porter square star market to pick up some grapes on sale for my mother. once i got back to went to the liquor store and got some woodchuck hard cider for tonight, before taking a quick shower to settle in and watch the pregame show beginning at 7:30pm. li didn't get home until 8pm.

i've been waiting a while for the start of the patriots 2017-2018 season. the game started well despite having 2 touchdowns called back. but the kansas city chiefs kept chipping away, and once they got the lead, they never gave it back, and new england began to play worse and worse. but even until the end i had hope, you have to give it to a team that can come back from a 27-3 superbowl deficit. hopefully the patriots can learn from this loss and the injuries sustained tonight by some key players (amendola, hightower) aren't that serious.

as i was getting ready for bed i noticed that cattwo was already hanging from the lid in the j-hook pose. i took the opportunity to clean out the jar then take a bunch of photos. i don't know how long it takes before it transitions to a full chrysalis, but at least half a day, so hopefully tomorrow i'll get to see it in progress.