Day 203
After an initial trail mow with our new brush cutter, we decided to take the first of many “new” hikes around our land. We had taken many hikes like this before, but there was something different knowing we now had a reliable machine that would make maintaining the trail much, much easier. In our grand vision, our trail will start through our nature play area before meandering through prairie, winding through the wetland, trekking through the trees, and eventually working back to the butterfly garden and chicken run. One of the areas the trail visits is loaded with common milkweed. Knowing monarchs lay eggs on this super important native plant, we often find it hard to avoid searching through each plant we encounter in hopes of seeing a monarch caterpillar in action.
Just our luck, we found one. Even though it is late in the season, this was actually the first one we had found in our backyard. Life has just gotten too busy, overscheduled, and frantic. Finding this black and yellow striped caterpillar was a healthy reminder to slow down and enjoy the simple things.
Missing our caterpillar raising days from summers of the past, we snatched up this chubby caterpillar and a few extra milkweed leaves and brought it back with us.
I am sure that we will find more (or at least try to) on many of the future hikes we go. We love that milkweed is so prevalent on our land but are hopeful and committed to add even more milkweed and other native plants as we continue the restoration process. Aiming to create a pollinator’s paradise, milkweed will most definitely be an integral part of our planting planning.
Since we moved in, we noticed an amazingly impressive amount of common milkweed all over our land. As we have improved the land with treatments and mowings, swamp milkweed is becoming more and more prevalent. In our newly created butterfly garden (and hopefully in more places soon), we have planted some butterflyweed.
We have already seen more crane action in our new and improved wetland. With some more work and even more patience, maybe we will see many more butterflies as well.
