Eastern Iowa Farmer Fall 2020

dear diary
kids exercise and watch the life cycle of
a butterfly, as well as help out an endangered
species.
A few years ago, a milkweed plant
miraculously sprouted in one of my raised
garden beds. Last year 10 plants grew,
and this year, well over 50 have grown!
Thankfully they have taken over one bed,
so I have two others to use and plant my
vegetables in. Each day we search for
eggs and caterpillars, but to no avail.
Finally, today, we checked the milkweed
in the raised bed, and we found two
eggs on one leaf. We haven’t seen any
Monarch butterflies, but obviously there
has been one who successfully made the
trek from Mexico to Maquoketa, Iowa,
and laid the next generation.
We pulled the leaf off the plant, brought
it inside and waited for the eggs to hatch
– rather wait for the caterpillars to chew
their way out of the egg shell and start
the next process of becoming a big, fat
caterpillar that makes a chrysalis.
The boys absolutely love hunting for
eggs and caterpillars, while Addie is still
a little young yet. They have asked for
weeks now when the butterflies would
be back, and now, they can’t wait to find
more caterpillars. In our short mile of
road ditch we own we found over 150
caterpillars and eggs in a week. How
exciting!
Monday, June 8
#20 – Creek Stompin’
Today was hot, and while the
kids have a pool, it presents
limitations as it is simply a
round, metal cattle water tank
located in the shade our machine
shed presents every afternoon.
In one of our particular pastures there
is a neat little creek that runs north/south
as a tributary to the Maquoketa River.
Perhaps the most inviting aspect of this
particular creek is its beautiful sandy bottoms
that allow a lot more fun than those
with gooey, sticky, dirty, muddy bottoms.
The kids had a blast running and
jumping through the creek. We were even
joined by a few cows and calves as we
had fun making memories.
It was a beautiful day; however, the
bugs were trying to carry me away. Conveniently,
I forgot bug spray, so our fun
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eifarmer.com fall 2020 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 93