Butterfly Research

Today we finally finished our Monarch data sheet for Project Monarch Health http://www.monarchparasites.org/.  Below are the pictures of the info we are mailing in and we can't wait to see what our research shows about our local population:

We sampled 28 butterflies since May, not bad for a pair of rookies. 

Stay tuned for our next post in which we will share the changes we have made in our garden and process to accommodate the local butterfly population.

Some of you have expressed interest in creating a butterfly garden.  Though we are not experts, Isabel and I would be more than happy to help you get your garden started.  You can also let us know if you want to be notified when butterflies are either going into or coming out of their chrysalides.  Happy nature explorations to all!

Welcome Back

Hey Everybody?

Welcome back from Summer vacation!  We were very busy this Summer with friends and family and did not have time to blog.  We did have time to take pictures that we could post once the school year started.  So, to start things off with a bang we thought we would share a photo of this Stinkhorn mushroom that popped up in our front garden.  It is a bizarre looking thing with flies,  it really makes you think you have some kind of alien thing in your yard. 

Isabel and I are too smart for that so we immediately researched it on the internet.  We discovered that they are supposed to be a sign of a healthy garden so we happily accepted it's presence and it was gone in a day along with flies.

Gardening for the butterflies has made us more aware of what is in our garden.  We took some awesome pictures this Summer so stay tuned for some more great info from Isabel's garden.