A monarch caterpillar on the Mexican milkweed in our backyard. Butterflies keep laying eggs and we keep finding new caterpillars. I just bought some ladybugs to help with the outbreak of milkweed aphids. The caterpillars do enough damage to this hearty plant without the aphids and ants! This plant has gorgeous red and orange flowers. The park where I planted my box has a hearty population of monarchs & milkweed, along with some information about monarch migration.
Originally, I had some big plans for Plant A Letterbox Day. But, this was the last week of school around here (and yesterday was the very last day-yippee!). So, there was kindergarten graduation, switch day, teacher gifts to plan and get, parties to attend and more--so everything had to be scaled down. I had 1 1/2 hours allotted to plant a box yesterday in the morning (there's a mystery box I've wanted to plant forever called Space City), but that ended when the room mom called with a party emergency. Ooooh well, Space City has waited this long (I carved it last summer).
Then, after school, it was off to the movies for celebrating the end of school and then the kids were fried and refused to go plant one.
I like participating in these sort of collective events. I think it's fun. So after dinner, I dug out a stamp I'd already carved (there are dozens around here stuffed in drawers) and used for this coaster project I'd finished in December, put together a simple logbook and walked over to the small nature park near my house.
I love going to this preserve as every visit I find different plants or animals. Today I saw a new variety of thistle and a pair of cardinals chasing each other around. And, I planted my box so that others will come and see this wonderful park (and save it from development). Clues to this one are only on Atlasquest...it's called Arts & Crafts Rose. I hope you all enjoy it.
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