We Have Eggs!

We watched a female monarch fly around our milkweed plants on and off for several hours today. She looked like she was laying eggs, but we couldn't find any on our tall plants. We did find a few eggs on some of our smaller, potted milkweed plants, though, and brought those inside to keep safe from the mosquito fogging. While I was looking for more eggs tonight, I found 3 teeny tiny, newly hatched caterpillars. That means there were already eggs on the plants before this morning's butterfly visited! Hopefully this summer's attempts will turn out better than last year's. I just don't know how to successfully battle the mosquito fogging.

A couple weeks ago a naturalist at the metropark gave us a few caterpillars to take home. The ones we put outside died after the fogging (even though I attempted to cover our plants), but the one we kept inside is now in its chrysalis. Hopefully it will eclose soon. The chrysalis is looking a little dark, so I'm not sure it's going to make it. We'll see. As you can imagine, Danielle is thrilled with the eggs and caterpillars.