Butterflies appear when angels are near.
It never fails there is always a butterfly that emerges on a big day for my daughter. Today we had two.
Nature at its finest.
We had two butterflies emerge today, an orange barred sulphur (81) and a monarch butterfly (639).
We have had a great amount of rain yesterday and today and my garden is looking beautiful!
I had four butterflies emerge this morning in iur butterfly house, 3 monarch butterflies (now totaling 637 released) and one orange barred sulphur butterfly (now totaling 80 released).
The clouds finally parted, the rain stopped, and three of the four have been released.
My butterfly garden is located right outside my front door and goes along the pathway to the driveway and then extends the length of the house. I have said this multiple times, it was a great placement, as I can watch the butterflies from my couch. The best, though, is catepillars love the little nook by my front door to create its chrysalis.
This time a monarch butterfly chrysalis.
I walk my garden daily, more times than not, multiple times a day.
When you plant a butterfly garden your eyes become trained on what to look for – eggs, caterpillars, chrysalis, butterflies – all the stages of life.
Lately I have found a few newly emerged monarch butterflies in the garden, a great surprise, as I never saw the chrysalis. The last few have been on the underside of the giant milkweed leaves, the monarchs host plant.
Today, I spotted this beauty still drying its leaves.
Another lifecycle has begun. I have begun to spot many monarch caterpillars again. The clues they give make it easy to spot them, such as their frass left on leaves. The size of the frass also lets you know how big the caterpillar may be.
The sunflower has always been one of my absolute favorite flowers. They just look happy. I’ve had dune sunflowers for a good four, or five years, but the sunflower, I can’t tell you when.
My daughter and I have been looking for the perfect flower for a particular spot in the garden and saw this, and well, it went right in the cart.
This morning a male monarch butterfly was resting, and walking on my new addition.