Dear Reader,
This week has been moving day for 33 Monarch caterpillars--but no need to rent a moving truck, because the move was "just around the corner," to a new milkweed plant in my garden.
Years ago I started planting milkweed in my gardens hoping to attract Monarch butterflies and word has definitely gotten around, because now I have Monarch butterflies in my yard all year long (I live in Sarasota, Florida). I do my best to make sure I always have plenty of milkweed plants in my gardens, because it's the only thing Monarch caterpillars will eat, and they eat, and they eat and they chomp, chomp, chomp...until the plant is stripped bare and they are big and fat and ready to spin a chrysalis.
But I'm going to have to make a trip to the nursery to buy some additional plants, because the caterpillars now outnumber my milkweed plants. The past couple of days I've found 33 caterpillars stranded on stripped, bare stems of milkweed plants. It would be a real challenge for those caterpillars to search around my gardens and locate new plants to munch on, so I decided to give them a helping hand. I cut the bare stem the caterpillar was on and I searched around my yard for an untouched milkweed plant, then placed the stem and caterpillar on the new plant and "Dinner is served!"
I'm hooked on those cute little guys. I feel blessed they decided to make my yard their home. So I make the rounds every morning in my gardens, checking on possible new "patients" who might need my assistance. The work is very rewarding, especially when I see newly "born" beautiful Monarch butterflies enjoying my gardens, and laying their eggs, and the cycle begins again.
To see photos, click here.
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]
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