Dear Reader,
I've become a doting mother to 38 monarch caterpillars for the past few weeks, and the numbers are growing. Every day more teeny, tiny baby caterpillars appear on my milkweed plants. It's exciting! It's amazing really, especially when I saw three different butterflies come out of their chrysalis right before my eyes. After a monarch slips out of a darkened chrysalis, seemingly a little stunned, it spends the next couple of hours drying out its wings, so it can head out on its first flight.
Mothering monarch caterpillars is a full time job. The babies have a ferocious appetite. 'Chomp chomp, chomp...' One caterpillar can strip an entire milkweed plant in a day. I trim back my old milkweed, so it will regrow leaves, but re-growing takes time. When a plant gets stripped, and there are still caterpillars on it, I gently move them to a new plant. But eventually I can't keep up. 'What are my babies going to eat?' So off to the nursery I go to buy more milkweed.
The caterpillar nursery has taken over my backyard. Caterpillars are crawling on the back steps, and they're everywhere on the brick patio. So when I walk out the back door, I have to step carefully. The leaves are piling up, too. What a mess. (It's that time of year in Florida.) But I'm concerned about raking them, because they're part of the nursery. So instead, I've decided to look at the leaves in a different way. They're gorgeous, they add character to the flower gardens, and I think my monarchs would agree.
It's true a mother's work is never done. And I feel blessed. Everyday there are amazing miracles all around me. I'm so fortunate to be part of the monarch butterfly cycle.
To see photos of my monarch nursery, click here.
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
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This month's Penguin Classics book is The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway. I have a copy of the book to share with a lucky reader, so start reading and enter for your chance to win.
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