The Bovine Bugle

Back to school and back to Monarch butterfly season

It's been really crazy here at the farm with the beginning of school. Everyone starts a new routine, and all the help is gone all day. But we seem to be settling into the new routines, and Karen and I are getting used to not having any kids at home through the day for the first time in over 16 years. (Our youngest is now off to First Grade!)

With the start of school comes the search for Monarch butterfly caterpillars. Karen has a great knack for finding them, and she has found several the past couple of weeks. Starting with when our oldest, Ben, started school, we have usually had one or two two-liter soda bottles filled with milk weed and a hungrily munching Monarch caterpillar sitting in the kitchen in early September. It always amazes us to watch the magical transformation of the green, black, and yellow caterpillar into a beautiful red and black butterfly.

The first butterfly emerged from its chrysalis a couple days ago. We carefully brought the bottle outside and set the butterfly free. The next day, while I was trimming around the base of one of our Christmas trees, I spied a Monarch chrysalis hanging from a bottom branch (below). It's not often you spy one out in the field. I'll have to check that one to see when the butterfly emerges. Meanwhile, caterpilar number two is in the kitchen munching away and growing big and fat, getting ready to spin its chrysalis and make its amazing metamorphisis.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

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Posted by Blogger Chris at September 14, 2005 07:14 PM