After watching a large and lumpy Eric Carle-like catepillar transform into a brilliantly colored Eastern Black Swallowtail butterfly over the course of a few days in July, I am now certain that butterflies are nothing short of magical. I am completely enchanted by them. While in Texas over the summer, we visited a butterfly garden and a volunteer there mentioned to me that we should be on the lookout for Monarchs migrating to Mexico in late September. Butterflies migrate?! How did I not know this fascinating bit of information? What is even more fascinating to me is that it is the 3rd generation of offspring of those who flew south who migrate back north again in the spring. Truly amazing this universe of ours... The same volunteer who told me of the migration also noted that milkweed is a host to Monarchs (as dill is to Swallowtails). I did plant some milkweed in our garden and a small butterfly bush but I don't expect visitors for another year or so. Returning home after a short walk today, though, little N spotted a beauty. We stopped to admire her in front of our neighbor's butterfly bush and then we saw another and another and... another.
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