Monarch!

 I was very pleased the other day to notice a Monarch butterfly fluttering around our (relatively new) milkweed plants. She stayed around for some 20 minutes, I think it was -- long enough for me to finish up Rosie's breakfast and take her out to sit with me in a chair next to the patch to watch the butterfly come and go.

As I had hoped, later on in the day I checked a particular leaf with a notch in it that I'd noticed the butterfly settle upon at one point, and underneath -- yes! -- was a little white egg. I briefly looked under other leaves and found one other.

I looked up the lifecycle and supposedly they'll hatch in four days, and just before then I'll be able to see a dark spot on one side of the egg, where the head will be. The caterpillar will be really tiny to start with (as you might imagine) but will grow to eating a leaf an hour(!). I checked that bent-leaf egg yesterday and saw the dark spot. I'd been patrolling the milkweed a bit, as it has some aphids enjoying the seed pods here and there. I'd been thinking of bringing in some ladybugs to combat the aphids (I'd already seen one ladybug on the milkweed). I wonder if they'd harm the caterpillar? Hrmph...guess I shouldn't find out, at least not until the caterpillar is big enough to hold its own. I look forward to keeping an eye out for the caterpillars, even while they slowly decimates my milkweed patch. :-P

On another note, I've also noticed our local flock of goldfinches eating the seeds on the flowers of my basil. I'd let it flower for my bees to benefit from. It's nice that it benefits the birds, too (and fewer seeds mean fewer weeds).