Seasonal Critters

We have been starting to pull out our Halloween decorations and begun to engage in the all-important annual discussion/deliberation about costumes. Has that been happening around your house, too? Turns out humans aren't the only ones surrounding themselves with black and orange at this time of year. Take a look at the milkweed bugs we discovered on our little ramble last Saturday. 

The alien-like pods of the milkweed plants enticed us into a section of the meadow that was teeming with life. Thousands of milkweed bugs at all stages of development...kind of like an insect Halloween party gone wild! The really cool thing about milkweed plants is that in addition to milkweed bugs, they are also the host plants for monarch butterflies. Lots of orange and black there, too. And it turns out that this area is one of the stopping points for those amazing monarchs that make the 2000 mile migration journey to Mexico. I have always wanted to see the monarchs down in Mexico. That really is a dream trip for me, but until that happens we will happily keep an eye open for them during the fall and spring months, we will plant milkweed in our yard, and we'll also be viewing the new film, Flight of the Butterflies.