It's time to start obsessing about Monarch butterflies again. There were reports over the winter that the Monarch population is way down, so this year I vow to find as many eggs as possible and raise them all to maturity. And of course that means milkweed. The 3 plants I bought last year (one each of common, swamp, and purple) are coming back in my garden (see the picture above--my single specimen of common milkweed is now 5 plants!), and I have decided that this year I will be a crazy butterfly lady and beg property owners in my town not to mow their milkweed plants (see below for my first project!). Wish me luck.
I'm also participating in a project called Journey North, which asks volunteers to post reports and pictures of sightings of the first milkweed plant, the first butterfly sighting and the first egg. Here's what the map of first-egg sightings looks like as of today:
