Butterflies

I think it is safe to say that many people will find most insects to be, well a turn off.  Many do not like spiders, and then there is is the state insect which bothers everyone to no end--the mosquito.  Come to think of it, I suspect the joke for most states is that the mosquito is the state insect.  Or of course, the Japanese Beetle.  Yet, most all appreciate some members of  the insect family, like the dragon fly.  Then there is the butterfly.  

Echinacea in our back flowerbed

The butterfly is at once both graceful and peripatetic.  They travel thousands of miles, and have been hard  hit by climate change in Mexico, and by loss of habitat in the United States.  Our agriculture has become such a mono-culture, and heavily mechanized that the habitat for butterflies, bees and other pollinators is being quickly pushed aside.  People are now encouraged to plant pollinators.  In my home garden for its almost 29 years it has been planted with a number of pollinator plants, and we judiciously use herbicides and pesticides (generally organic on flowers and ornamentals)  to avoid contamination to the pollinators.  Of the varied pollinators, I think we could most all agree that the butterfly is perhaps the neatest.  I don't think one needs to take my word for it, the evidence is in our cultural holdings.  For example, for about a month Olbrich Gardens in Madison now has its butterfly exhibit in its large glass enclosed Boltz Conservatory. 

Insect on a decorative thistle

Caterpillar on bottom of milkweed at Rotary Gardens

My wife and I visited Olbrich on Monday, but not for the butterfly exhibit, but to see the gardens since the last time we were there we got rained out.  The parking lot was packed and as I tried to find a spot I realized it must be for the butterfly exhibit.  There were not that many ini the gardens themselves.  They have real butterflies in Boltz, brought up as a chrysalis from South America to hatch in the conservatory.  They also have other exhibits for children on butterflies in another part of the building.  Olbrich is, however, outdone by the Milwaukee Public Museum which has a year around butterfly exhibit.  It is a fascinating to hear the story of a chrysalis to a butterfly at the MPM.  We do not see such exhibits for yellow jackets, or other bees, much less spiders.  Although my last visit to the MPM, last fall, they had information on pollinators.

Butterfly on rose decimated by Japanese Beetle

This past week while at Olbrich and a next day trip to Rotary Gardens in Janesville, we saw many butterflies around the varied flowers.  We also had pointed out to us a caterpillar on the bottom side of a leaf in the Rotary Gardens Alpine area that will turn to a chrysalis that will become a monarch butterfly.  The caterpillar is from the egg of a monarch.  Such is the circle of life.  

Dragon Fly art work at Rotary Gardens

What is difficult I found is trying to get photos of the monarch.  In my yard most every time I tried to get a photo, it would fly away.  I would get within eight feet, it would fly away.  So while I see some grace in the butterfly, he way it moves in the air, the patience it has when it eats (when I am at a distance), and then not the least it being a sign of the resurrection of Christ--a different type of grace, if you will.  

It took patience to get this photo of a monarch on a zinnia in our Rosebed

I also found that butterflies can be a metaphor for people.  Last week I was looking at flowers in my south flower bed and I noticed two butterflies.  One sitting patiently on a flower (interestingly, I was able to get close, but did not have a camera), and the other flying around, landing, and then getting up to fly around again, to land, again, but only to get up and fly around again. A pattern consistently repeated.  It struck me that this is a metaphor for me and my wife.  I am sure the reader knows which of us sits patiently and which one moves around.