The Fluttering of Butterflies and Why This 4-H Project Is Important

Bet you've never seen a butterfly like this!

The colorful butterfly seemed to flutter from a blanket that Solano County 4-H'er Erica Lull was sewing last Saturday, Jan. 14, at a “Cuddle Me Close” community service project.

Erica, 14, a junior leader in the Tremont Countywide 4-H Service Learning Project, has made 700 blankets for new nursing mothers. The soft, flannel blankets or "cover-ups" provide privacy to breast-feeding mothers and their newborns.

Audrey Ritchey, an x-ray technician at the North Bay Medical Center, Fairfield, who triples  as president of the Solano County 4-H Leaders' Council, leader of "Cuddle Me Close," and as a co-community leader of the Tremont 4-H Club, Dixon, launched the service project in 2013.

Erica took to it like a needle to thread.

“Erica has made about 60 percent of the blankets,” Ritchey said. “She's amazing.”

Ritchey, a nine-year 4-H adult volunteer (aritchey4h@gmail.com) says the six youngsters in her community-service project not only learn how to sew, but learn how to connect with one another and how to budget while fulfilling a public service need. The project, Ritchey said, “promotes mother-baby bonding through skin-to-skin contact, supports positive and physical and mental development, is healthier for mother and child and is inexpensive in comparison to formula." 

Studies show that breast milk contains antibodies that help babies fight off viruses and bacteria and lowers the risk of allergies, ear infections, respiratory illnesses and bouts of diarrhea, said Ritchey, adding that breastfed babies also have a lower risk of childhood obesity.

Erica, a member of the Elmira 4-H Club, and a freshman at Vacaville High School, is a sixth-year 4-H'er who holds the Gold Star rank. This year she's enrolled in nine projects: two leadership projects and the community service learning project, plus poultry, rabbits, cavies (guinea pigs), dog care and training, woodworking and leathercraft. Erica is also involved in the Vaca High Nursing Club, and is leaning toward a career as a physician.

Last Saturday Erica was sewing blankets during the Solano County 4-H Project Skills Day, held at the Community Presbyterian Church, Vallejo. Earlier she delivered a presentation on “The Digestive System of Chickens”--and judges awarded her a showmanship pin, signifying excellence. Then she headed upstairs to the "Cuddle Me Close" demonstrations, to sew and to teach other 4-H'ers how to sew.

The butterfly-themed blankets seemed to cluster at her table, not unlike those monarchs roosting in overwintering at sites along coastal California and in central Mexico.

Does she like butterflies? Insects? She does. “When I was a little girl, I used to be obsessed with bugs,” she acknowledged.

Odds are that the butterfly blankets she's making—the patterns also depict colorful flowers and cuddly animals—will be treasured by the new moms. “I was told that one mom started to cry when she got the cover-up,” Ritchey said. “She stated that it was the only thing she had for her baby.”

But back to the butterflies. They glowed red and green. Is this butterfly "real," that is, does it have a counterpart in nature? Could Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis, identify it? Shapiro, who has studied the butterflies of central California for more than four decades,  maintains a website on butterflies at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/, where he records population trends.  A noted Lepitopderist, he authored A Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Valley Regions, illustrated by Tim Manolis, and published in 2007 by the University of California Press. The book covers more than 130 species.

Shapiro checked out the red and green butterfly. "Nobody I know," he said. "(It's) one God hasn't gotten around to creating yet!"

 Or, one Shapiro hasn't discovered yet...