First Monarch Caterpillar Of 2021
This summer, our milkweed is just far behind where it should be with growing out front. I don’t know why it took so long to come up, but judging by past years it should have bloomed and practically have seed pods by now, the ones out back in the pots do. I wonder if or at least my theory is it has something to do with the neighbors needing to show off their snow blowers by blowing all the snow and salt from the street and half of it winds up in our flowers. They like weed killer too. Our plants out front don’t even have buds yet this year, though.
On our way back to the front door from our evening walk, Molly spotted a couple of caterpillars on the plants. They’re too small to support the caterpillars, so I suggested taking them out back to the fully grown plants.
We broke off the leaf that it was eating and relocated to the potted milkweed that’s on our patio. This morning I notice it’s eaten a bunch of leaves and at the top of that stem, starting on a new one. It’ll probably be going to chrysalis soon. Hopefully, it picks any spot to hang other than our tree, which should be getting removed this week.
In the past years it seems that once we spotted our first caterpillar there seemed to be more and more of them each day. At those times, there was a lot more milkweed available out front than there is this year. We’ve been seeing monarch butterflies around them. They don’t seem to bother with the plants out back, though. I’ll keep an eye out for more caterpillars in the front yard and move them to the healthier plants when I see them.