Butterfly Stampede!

Why cultivate native plants? Well, it's a great way to attract wildlife to your garden.

Which sounds like a great idea until you gotta call animal control at 10 o'clock on a Sunday night because, while you were emptying your salad spinner into the compost bin, you suddenly noticed a 35-pound dead racoon curled up against the back fence.

But, you know, you take the good with the bad. We have had monarch butterflies up the wazoo coming through here this weekend. I think they're monarchs. I'm not a… not a… What is the person who knows all about butterflies? Cleptomaniac? Depilatory? You know what I mean.

It's hard to get butterfly pictures in my backyard, though, because the butterfly plants are up pretty high. And by the time you run to the garage and get your ladder, the butterflies have moved on. I took two of these three pictures next door, where my neighbor has some herbs planted. Sage and marjoram, I think. The monarchs seem to like really fragrant stuff. Then on the Ohlone Greenway down the street under the BART tracks, there's a big ol' patch of milkweed, and there are literally hundreds of these butterflies flitting around down there. I've never seen anything like it in my life.

You go down there, and you're walking through clouds of butterflies. You feel like Ali McGraw in one of those movies from the 60's.

Kurt "big daddy" True
12 june 2005