Wednesday, September 1, 2010

OMG!!

Here's what I saw in the monarch ranch when I got up at 4:45 this morning.......9, count 'em, 9 chrysalis have turned black because there's a monarch butterfly in there ready to emerge!

And here are the 9 beautiful new monarch butterflies that greeted me when I got home from work this afternoon!
I will be using my last 9 monarch tags when I release these butterflies this afternoon, for a total of 50 monarch butterflies tagged and released this summer! This is a new personal best for me and more than doubles my totals from the previous 2 seasons of operating a monarch ranch. I'm already planning to purchase a larger enclosure and expanding my monarch ranching operations for next summer. 75 sounds like a really good number, don't you think? (tags can only be purchased in lots of 25)

Sadly, this concludes another season of monarch ranching. It will be strange to not have monarchs sitting on the kitchen counter anymore, since they've been taking up so much of my time at home for the past couple months. But, it gives me something to plan for and look forward to for next summer. I'm already collecting milkweed seeds from plants in my backyard to start new seedlings next spring and figuring out where and how to expand milkweed plantings to encourage and accomodate more monarch activity in the backyard.

I strongly encourage any of you who are interested to try monarch ranching. I think you'll find it a fun and rewarding activity for a minimal $$ investment. I'll even send you seeds if you want to try growing your own milkweed plants! "Try it, you'll like it!"

10 comments:

Gaelyn said...

I'll miss your ranch and think you should go for at least 100 next summer.

Judy DeBoer said...

WAY cool!

Heather said...

Wow Ruthie, that's awesome! Congrats on your 50 successful releases!

Anonymous said...

Oh how cool, 50 Monarchs released just in your yard. Do you ever find out about tagging and where they went? I think you should go for more then 75 next year.

MOM

Jayne said...

That is just so cool Ruthie! I know you feel like a proud mama!! :c)

troutbirder said...

Hey Ruthie. Really neat! btw you might enjoy my latest post on the "Monarchs of Fillmore County." :)

Taos Sunflower said...

This has been so cool to go on this adventure with you!

stephen said...

Congratulations on achieving your goal this year with your Monarch Ranch. It's been wonderful to follow your adventures and to see the successes with the Monarchs.

RuthieJ said...

Hi Gaelyn,
100 sounds like a good number. I guess if I'm going to expand, I might as well do it right!

Thanks Judy.

Thanks Heather. It was sure fun.

Hi Mom,
Once I've completed my tagging worksheet, I send the information back to the MonarchWatch people. They keep all the tag numbers on file and if any of the butterflies I tagged are found (usually in Mexico) they will send me an e-mail to notify me. I think it's a really small percentage of tagged butterflies that are ever found.

Thanks Jayne. It was a joy for me to see them all flying around free.

Thanks Ray. I'll check it out.

Thanks Martie. Glad you could join me!

Thanks Stephen. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Guinifer said...

Like a bouquet of butterflies! Lovely! My family was in Banff last week and when we walked in to town, a yearling elk walked right up to the sidewalk and snacked on some grass right behind my 14 year old - it was crazy!