The exciting part for us this year was that the milkweed that we planted in our
backyard a few summers ago
really took off and we have two healthy clumps
of it. Around the middle of July I was doing my regular inspection of the leaves
and found
twelve eggs! We decided to leave some of them in their natural state
outdoors, but soon found that after they hatched they mysteriously disappeared...
probably
to the jaws of a bird or insect predator. I brought the rest of the eggs
inside and that is where the seven chrysalises came from. The other six
caterpillars
were brought back from our vacation in Wisconsin the last week
of July. We saw dozens of Monarchs while in Wisconsin and even had a few
fly around our heads! Every milkweed plant we came across
seemed to
have either eggs or caterpillars.
