Monarchs & Milkweed

I have been visiting some homeschool blogs this week just to see what everyone else is up to.  What I've noticed in my visiting is that nearly everyone is sick of snow!!  To be honest, we don't have a chance to get sick of snow here in the South since we so rarely get any at all.  I'm not that crazy about it myself, though, since snow necessarily involves really cold weather!   And I'm not a fan of cold weather at all.  Which is great since we don't get a lot of that either most of the year. 


So what in the world could snow possibly have to do with monarchs and milkweed?  I'm glad you asked!  My younger daughter and I were doing her science lesson today.  We are using Exploring Creation with Zoology 1:  Flying Creatures of the 5th Day (Apologia Science Young Explorers) by Jeannie Fulbright.  Today's lesson told about monarch butterflies, their features and how they eat, and about their migration patterns.  The pictures were absolutely beautiful, and it was so nice to think about butterflies when all we see outside right now is brown grass and bare trees.  We do see some fat little chickadees and red birds most days because we have a bird feeder outside our window, and the poor birds are desperate for food in all this cold weather!  (You can tell by looking at those fat little birds that we are taking care of them very well until the weather is warm again.) 


So we were looking at these beautiful photos of the monarch butterflies and reading about what they eat and how to attract them to our yard.  We had never really thought about trying to attract them to our yard before (even though we did raise some Painted Lady butterflies in our house in a butterfly habitat earlier this school year).  We read that they like to get nectar from milkweed flowers, so we did a little research on milkweed to see how to grow it.


We found a website where we can order milkweed seeds, so we went there to check out their information.  It turns out that there are LOTS of different kinds of milkweed.  (We didn't know that!)  Different kinds like it better in different areas of the country.  I looked for several that might be happy to grow here in the South, and I'm planning to order some tomorrow.


We also didn't know that some kinds of milkweed seeds must be exposed to the cold, wet conditions of winter before they will germinate in the spring.  For other kinds, that's not necessary.  Now is the time, though, to start preparing the seeds that need the cold and wet, though, since they'll need it for 6 weeks before they can be planted.  Once our seeds arrive--hopefully pretty soon--we'll start getting them ready.  In the spring when we plant them, maybe I'll do a gardening post.  Then, of course, we'll have to show off our beautiful flowers once they bloom.  (I was so surprised to see all the different varieties of milkweed and the many very different and colorful flowers that they produce!)  Hopefully we'll attract those butterflies and be able to show off their pictures as well.


So instead of thinking about the cold, wet winter weather we're having right now, we're going to think about beautiful monarchs and milkweed!  Would you like to join us?