Carolina Butterfly Society Tours the Farm

Saturday, members of the Carolina Butterfly Society paid the farm a visit as part of their mountain tour.  It was a brief visit, and they were busy looking for butterflies the whole time.  Unfortunately, there were very few to see. 

Dennis Burnette, first on the left, it comes to be, is a fourth cousin of mine.  I think he felt the pull of the family as he wandered on the farm which is located just 1.3 miles from where our ancestors first settled these mountain in 1797.

Most agreed that a summer time visit during the height of butterfly and flowering season would be a great thing to do.  I suggested July, the peak time for butterflies at the farm.

Notice the milk(weed) maiden in the photo

Meanwhile, I am nurturing six, I repeat only six, monarch cats from a very weak showing of monarchs returning from Mexico to lay eggs on my milkweed patch this year.  I only counted two females laying eggs around April 4.  It is widely thought that the monarchs outran the emerging milkweed due to prevailing winds and warm temperatures.

I was lucky to find those six 1/8 inch long caterpillars.  The hard freeze that wiped out my blueberries and damaged my hops was also responsible for killing the early hatched caterpillars.  Hopefully, these six will be the start of many more to come this summer.