Hello,

Our Foundation has steadily grown into the premere resource for Monarch materials in North America.

Thank you! While many know us and love us, some newcomers may need a little reassurance.

Here are just a few of the comments and emails we see every week.

UPDATE: my 8 yr. old just came home from a birthday party and brought me 2 milkweed plants and 15 eggs. I planted the milkweed right away, cut the leaves for the eggs and as I was putting them into the egg box I found another 3 had hatched!! I am addicted!

Hello! Christopher: We met a few weeks ago (actually it was Friday week) when I came out and you kindly educated me on the butterfly/milkweed. You gave me a caterpillar castle and several (7) larvae. I set it up according to your instructions and put 5 in the castle and 2 in the garden. When the first one assumed the J position, I cried and have loved watching 2 more. This morning the first one emerged!!!! And of course I cried again....I put sugar-watered cotton balls in there and some red pentas. Now my question is once this precious one dries out, do I try to release her while the others hang or does she stay in there until all are ready? I unfortunately chose the small castle and someday I think I will come out and get a larger one because the grandchildren are going to love this!....Once again, thanks for your work and for taking the time to share your knowledge with me. I am sure we will see you again. Sincerely Harriette Hill

Thanks Chris. I really appreciate it a lot. You have great customer service.

Andrea

Subject: Re: recent purchase

Hello Andrea,

No problem we will send some more caterpillars today!
You can never tell exactly with eggs and shipping.
We got you covered!!!

Christopher
LMF Founder

Before I retired from teaching, I must have taught hundreds of teachers
and classes the awesome story of the monarch butterfly and how to find the
eggs, or larva to raise!!!!!!   I still get excited in summer protecting
milkweed and raising egg to adult monarchs with colleagues, friends, and
children!!!!!!

This is indeed a cause dear to my heart that you are doing.   Keep me posted
on any new discoveries.   I recently discovered a recently published book:
Four Wings and a Prayer that tells some amateur scientists traveling endless
hours, searching devotedly for more info about How They Do It!!!!!   I was
gratified to realize all my conjectures of decades of study were
substantiated
by these studies.

A monarch admirer,

Norma

Message Type: Story
Subject: Other
Name: Ashley

My grandmother always loved butterflies and Monarchs were her favorite. I spent every summer with her during my childhood and had many special memories of my grandparents interactions with nature and gardens. Now that she is gone this is a way for me to preserve her memory. Every time I see a Monarch I think of her smiling down on my. My daughter just went to her first prom last weekend and while we were outside taking pictures two Monarch butterflies started swarming the cherry tree in the background. I took the most beautiful picture that could win awards! What a perfect memory to a very special night! My grandmother made me love these beautiful creatures and I want to help my students love them as well.

Message Type: Praise
Subject: Organization
Name: Sandra

Garfield Elementary is located in an urbal industrial community of lower socioeconomic status, as reflected by the fasct that over 90% of the students qualify for free or reduced lunches.Last year\'s CBEDS data indicate that 98% of our students are of Hispanic or Latino ethnicity, and approximately 80% are classified as LEP, Limited English Proficient, speaking Spanish as their first language. With the high cost of living increase, many of our families do not have the means to do extra things for their children, so I would like to take the opportunity to thank your organization for providing the funding and giving our students the opportunity to bring the Monarch Butterflies into the classrooms.

Message Type: Praise
Subject: Offerings
Name: Kathy

Thank you so much for the opportunity to pursue a natural science laboratory on our school grounds. As state legislators continue to decrease funding at the local level, all monetary grants are earnestly pursued. We appreciate your willingness to assist us as science teachers! Thanks again - Kathy, 2nd grade teacher, Overland Park, KS.

Hello Live Monarch.org,
Just wanted to share with you that Monarchs are thriving in my hometown of
Marblehead MA. Last summer and Fall I successfully collected eggs (from
nature, mostly my back yard) raised and released over 240 Monarch
Butterflies! I have been raising them for many, many years but last year
was my most productive. The average amount prior to last year release was
about 130 per year. I like to believe that they are now imprinted to
return to my area, if that is even possible. I also teach at a local camp
and the young campers are well educated about the environment and how
everything effects our world, even killing so called milkweed type
"weeds".
Thank you for caring about our Mother Earth.
Jayne
Marblehead Ma.

Message Type: Story
Subject: Other
Name: Nancy C.

About ten years ago, I was driving home one afternoon along a new highway. Several swarms of Monarchs crossed the road along my way. I was mesmerized by the sight, something I'd never seen before, and felt that I was indeed privileged. Nancy, Rockvale, TN

Hi,

Just an update on our butterfly project. We planted our seeds and our plants grew nice and healthy, I never paid too close attention, MAINLY BECAUSE WE HAD NOT PURCHASED ANY EGGS OR CATERPILLARS YET.but something was eating our milkweed !??

Well, this morning, we were about to water our milkweedS, and got a huge surprise ! Caterpillars...... ALL OVER !! WE HAD PLANNED THAT ONCE OUR PLANTS WERE HEALTHY WE WOULD ORDER SOME EGGS AND CATERPILLARS....never knew mother nature had plans of her own (smile)
BOY WHAT A NICE SURPRISE. LAST COUNT WE HAVE 12 CATERPILLARS !!


Thanks again for the seeds, we enjoyed your online course and this homeschool unit was a huge success !

Carolyn and Khadijah Eure

Just wanted to let you know how pleased I was with your large monarch caterpillar kit! I planted the milkweed plants in my garden, along with other flowers to attract adults. My caterpillars I got from you have grown and been released, all to the delight of my class of second graders (and other teachers!) The best thing was, as I was collecting leaves for my caterpillars at school, I noticed SEVERAL monarch caterpillars in my garden, muching on the milkweed. They are growing nicely, so 12 more monarchs will, hopefully, be released as adults! What a beautiful process to observe!

The parents of my kids have gotten involved, and we are now planning a butterfly garden for school.

Thanks so much for getting me started!

Sincerely, Jodi Hein

Thank you for working with me to help make the PTA Science Explorers
Night at Boon Elementary School in Allen, TX a success. About 100
families attended, and the live insect exhibit featuring your monarchs
and my black swallowtails was extremely popular. (I suspect we had
such a large turn out in part because the principal advertised that we
would have live butterflies at the event.) The adult female monarch
you sent (named Katie by a Kindergarten student) was released the day
after the event, and the caterpillars and pupa are set up in the
science lab so that the entire school of 600 students can enjoy
observing the processes of metamorphosis one class visit at a time.
We are anxiously awaiting the emergence of our monarchs, and hope to be
able to video tape at least one emerging so that it can be shown over
the school TV system.

Thank you also for telling me that adult butterflies will accept
watermelon in place of nectar. One of the black swallowtails raised by
my daughter's Kindergarten class had a serious wing problem after it
emerged on Friday. We have been feeding him watermelon, and he is
living as a classroom pet in one of your castles. This is a much
better fate than "Steve" would have suffered had we been unable to feed
him properly.

One other piece of good news: At the science night the principal agreed
to set aside a space for a butterfly garden, and the Dad's club and
science club are discussing working together to build and maintain a
raised bed that will be host to food plants for several species of
butterflies (larva and adult), including monarchs, black swallowtails,
and gulf fritillaries. We will probably seek your services again, even
with our own garden, as nature cannot always give us these magnificent
creatures at all stages of the life cycle we would like to have present
at future events.

Sincerely,

Dr. Mary Urquhart Kelly
Boon PTA Science Committee Chair

Message Type: Suggestion
Subject: Offerings
Name: Jeanne

I am a high school teacher, but would actually be interested in doing this project with my Brownie Girl Scout troop. Can I still qualify?

OUR ANSWER - YES and tell all your friends too.

Hi.   I came across your website while searching for information 
about where the monarch caterpillars go to form their chrysalis.  For 
years we have had several milkweed plants just out my front door.  
Every few months through the summer we have a new bunch of 
caterpillars (20 or so).  We love watching them eat and grow,however, 
they seem to disappear in to thin air!   They get large and start to 
crawl off, usually up the side of our brick house but I can usually 
only find 2 or 3 chrysalis.  Today we watched as one formed its 
chrysalis in just a minute or two hanging from the overhang of the 
roof.   Amazing!  Where do you think they all go?  Would more survive 
if I collect them and keep them in an aquarium of some kind or are 
they better off left alone.   Also, is it OK to move them from one 
plant to another?  Sometimes they eat all of one plant while the 
plant on the other side of the door has plenty of leaves.  Sometimes 
there are aphids on the plants.  Does that affect the caterpillar?

Thanks,
Tonya

Message Type: Praise
Subject: Offerings
Name: Alan

I am trying to get permission to plant a 20\'x45\' milkweed garden and have all the answers for the grounds supervisor for our district except:

Thank you,
Alan

OUR ANSWER - Good Luck...We are here to help!

Hi, I ordered Milkweed plants from ya all and was wondering are the
plants themselves perennial?
By the way my plants are doing wonderful and we have a monarch that has
found the plants.
Great site!!

Thanks, Sandy

I am a schoolteacher in Gunnison, Colorado.  I just today was forwarded your
offer to provide classes with everything needed to set up a Monarch
butterfly garden.  I'm definitely interested, being an amateur entomologist
since I was very young.  Unfortunately, we have so many activities we still
have to pack into the remaining weeks of our school year that we couldn't
spare more than an hour or so to a project like this.  I'm assuming that
wouldn't be sufficient time.  But keep my email address on your list for
next year, and I'll try to leave more leeway for it in spring.

I would, however, be also interested in getting some milkweed seeds to get
some more  milkweed going around here.  We are the coldest town in the lower
48, but it does grow here (struggle though it might).  I'll click on the
"get seeds" link and see if that sets me up.  If not, maybe this inquiry
will result in your getting back to me.  Thanks.  It's pretty depressing how
much impact impact herbicides and mosquito spraying have had on our
butterfly population.  Glad to know there are people doing something to
mitigate the problem.

I was very concerned to read in your milkweed growing directions that
you suggest using using fertilizer once a week on the milkweeds. The
environmental destruction caused by fertilizer runoff from residential
areas is a far greater problem ecologically than a lack of milkweeds.
Excess nitrate in drinking water causes the very dangerous blue baby
syndrome and has recently been linked with breast cancer. It can cause
algal blooms that deplete dissolved oxygen levels, killing fish and
causing grave harm to ecosystems dependent upon the water resource.
Often these blooms produce toxic chemicals that also negatively affect
the ecosystem as well as causing skin rashes and worse in people who
have contact with the water. The immense "dead zone" where the
Mississippi enters the Gulf of Mexico is a result of excess nutrient
loading caused, in large part, by the use of too many fertilizers (both
agricultural and residential). Residential fertilizer use is actually a
much larger problem per acre than ag use, because people generally are
not at all careful about how they go about applying it (for example,
indiscriminate weekly use without any kind of soil test or concern
about weather).

I think it would be a real shame if people who were trying to "save the
environment" by providing habitat for monarchs ended up doing more
ecological damage with runoff. I would suggest one of two things. The
first (and best) would be to just remove all reference to fertilizer.
Milkweeds shouldn't need any fertilizer at all to grow well, but they
certainly don't need weekly applications. For example, see:

Phillips, Henry R. 1985. Growing and propagating wild flowers. Univ. of
North Carolina
Press, Chapel Hill

The author here indicates that milkweeds thrive on neglect, with very
little watering or fertilizing necessary. It may be that your plants
need extra care because you have so many of them in one area, but
remember that most recreational growers will have small plots among
other plants.

If you disagree and want to mention fertilization, then please at least
point out that application should be "as needed" and mention that
fertilizer use can cause significant environmental damage and that
growers should be careful to avoid this. Perhaps suggesting small
amounts of slow-release fertilizer would be beneficial. Maybe you can
say to try fertilizer if plants don't appear to be thriving.

Thanks for your time! I should add that I liked your treatment of pest
control starting with squishing them. That was well done.

_____________________________________________
David Courard-Hauri
Assistant Professor of Environmental Science and Policy
Olin Hall, Drake University
Des Moines, IA 50311

 

Our Reply: Shortened for you was that we agree and made changes to our site to incorporate what we do which is natural fertilizer...Composting!!! We are thankful for all your suggestions and do try to make updates when we can.

Hi, I usually don't look at "junk" e-mail at work, but had just been commenting to my son and daughter that I hadn't seen any Monarchs this summer. We live in New Hampshire (farmers) and have lots of milkweed patches where we usually find lots of caterpillars--and we often see the butterflies in our gardens. But NONE this year. I was interested to learn of the rain and ice that killed so many...maybe why we haven't seen any. Thanks for your good work, and we have the milkweed if they come back!
Becky Nelson
Beaver Pond Farm

We received four chrysalis from you. Three have emerged successfully and one had difficulty and was unable to fly (we hope she is safe in our yard). We called your staff for help with her and the gentleman who answered (Chris?) was wonderful. The male butterfly that successfully emerged today was friendly and curious, flew around our yard and even came back later in the day after flying off for several hours. This has been a fantastic experience – thanks for your hard work – we have distributed milkweed seeds to everyone at my place of employment and will plant in our yard as well.

Jan

Jan Martinez

I hope to order some seeds... Years ago, when I lived in St. Louis, Missouri, I was going to Mass at St. Anthony's Catholic Church. It was a huge Franciscan Church, stuccoed and lovely. I stopped before going into the church... because the whole side of the building facing me was covered with monarch butterflies! The church fairly pulsed with the movement of the wings. It was breathtaking.

I do have a milkweed, but it is scrawny... also a butterfly area. I've seen no monarchs this year.... Columbia, SC.

Connie Robinette
Web Developer and Graphic Producer
ETV

Hello,

I am very impressed with your website and efforts. I have sent links to
the site to my friends, but if I had printable flyers (pdf perhaps) I
would print some and put them up around my area - on the Humboldt State
University campus bulletin boards for example.. This is a very
environmentally conscious part of the country and good Monarch habitat
and I am sure many people here would join your effort if they knew about
you. Any chance you could create such and make them available from your
website?

Diana Ward

LMF: We have them!

Thanks for the heads up. I really like your site! I am particularly fascinated with the "butterfly repair course". Your photo captions are very funny. I released 3 black swallowtails this morning. They like the salvia and butterfly bush. I'm going to plant some more butterfly friendly plants in my garden as per your list. Also especially helpful is the info on storing and planting milkweed seeds, I had tried planting them directly when picking them off the plant, now I know why that wasn't succesful. Thanks again for a great resource, I've added yoy to my favorites and told a few people about you already!

Valerie Friedman
Orlando, FL

wanted to let you know how lovely your site is, and how much I am enjoying reading about the Monarch butterfly, It has always been my favourite butterfly because of its' beautiful burnt orange Fall colour.
Your site is so beautifully done, and I thankyou for taking so much time and effort to preserve these wonderful little miracles of God. I have several friends and e-pals that I will be forwarding this address to. I am certain that they will enjoy your site as much as I am. I am learning so much about butterflies that I did not know.

I live near an area with a lot of nature. We have lots of milkweed, or at least there used to be. Will have to check this out, as I haven't really seen all that many Monarch butterflies in the past few years.

But, I will make sure that I take some milkweed seeds and plant them for our future "Monarch friends."

I have adopted a butterfly "God's Little Miracle" and look forward to watching her progress through your emails. This will be great fun.

Some of my friends have butterfly bushes. Will these attract the Monarch or just other species?

God bless you all, as you continue forward in your wonderful endeavor.

Yours truly,
April

Hi!

I bought caterpillars from you about three weeks ago and this is the story of how it has turned out so far.

Before the caterpillars arrived I killed a nearby hornets nest to be sure they would be safe from harm.

When we received the package of caterpillars we were a bit surprised as to how small some of them were. I separated them out as equally as I could and distributed them among the three milkweed plants I had ready and waiting for them. My wife and I had made mesh nets that are about 3 foot high and surround the plants. They sealed off at the bottom with Velcro strips about 2 inches deep. This way we wouldn't have to worry about them being outdoors 24/7. The caterpillars grew quickly and my kids were very excited at first, but soon it was mainly my 10 year old son and I that kept close track of them.

About the 2nd week I went to the nursery to pick up another milkweed plant to try to attract wild butterflies. On a milkweed plant at the nursery I found a small Monarch caterpillar. I took it home to put it inside the net when my wife yelled at me that their was a hornet inside the net at the top. I looked and found that it was true. A hornet was buzzing around inside the net trying to get out and he looked pretty angry. I told my wife to grab a pair of kiddie scissors nearby and pinch the hornet through the net. She did so killing the hornet. When I went to open the net to get it out I saw a dark green goo smeared on the side of the net. I followed the goo and found a caterpillar struggling to hang onto the net and bleeding the goo from its side. Apparently the hornet stung it! I manage to get it to a leaf and it crawled on it. By the next morning it was dead. I was pretty upset by this and the funny thing is that I have always been nervous about hornets since I was stung by a nest of them as a kid. Now when I see a hornet I get extremely angry and kill it! Then I seek out its nest and destroy that as well! We can't imagine how it got into the net!

My son and I have been checking on the caterpillars several times daily since then. Last week I was lucky enough to spot the first caterpillar forming a J on the underside of a leaf. The next day It shed its skin and formed a chrysalis. Since then we have had 3 more caterpillars do the same.

Last night we saw the chrysalis start to turn clear. Everyone was very excited again and we all decided to get up early so we wouldn't miss it. I called a local news station to tell them we would have a Monarch emerging this morning, and to tell them the brief story of the tragic events that have befallen the Monarch over the last several years in Mexico. The woman that answered asked me to send her an e-mail telling her when it should emerge and to include your website address at www.livemonarch.com so she could investigate the subject. I also e-mailed the other local channels as well. Guess what!!! None of them showed!!! I was surprised by this because you have a whole page dedicated to the press. I thought they would be interested in it as a community story or just simply to get a 15 second clip of the butterfly emerging from its shell.

At about 12:30pm today the Monarch emerged from its clear shell. It is now drying its wings and filling them with fluid to stiffen them. My family is still pretty excited by it all and we have a bunch more left to go. I am sending you some pictures of our new butterfly Arthur (as in king). I'll also include a short film of the butterfly.

Last year I sent for milkweed seeds & planted a butterfly garden. The milkweed grew & came back bigger this year. I also planted several butterfly bushes in the yard & have seen many butterflies including the beautiful monarch.

I went on vacation last week & got back yesterday. The first thing I did was check my milkweed plants. Much to my surprise I found several monarch caterpillars munching on the milkweed.

Just wanted to say thank you for the web site that gave me and my children an opportunity to help & to see these wonderful creatures up close.

Thanks again,
Becky Frantz

Hi I have grown milkweed plants for about 5 yrs and had
caterpillars the first year. Also hatched out about 15 or so
Monarchs. then the freeze and for 2 yrs I didn't have any.
This month so far I have collected 10 caterpillars and I am
waiting for them to cocoon and hatch out. It is so interesting
to watch. I am going to plant more milkweed as I am afraid
I will run out before they cocoon. I can't believe how big they
get so fast. I am going to have a raised bed of milkweed
next year. I had some in the yard but something ate it all the
way to the ground and it never came back. Thats why I have
it in pots. Thank you for the info that is available over the
internet. Linda

I belong to the D-plex list for sharing monarch information and
somebody on this list, posted up your article on repairing butterfly
wings. Was fantastic reading - thank you!

I have a monarch here (boy) that emerged on 9th July this year. His
wings are not crumpled on either side but the hind wings seem to not
work in conjunction with the top wings. I keep him in an area with a
mozquito net around him and feed him on fresh flowers twice daily but I
do wish I could let him go to be free.

Can you suggest anything I can do for him?

Many thanks,
Gill Jackson,
Bay of Islands,
New Zealand

Hi!
I just wanted to give you some good news. I am a Master Gardener intern and was given an assignment to give a seminar on Butterfly Gardening about 5-6 weeks ago. And so I started studying, well really cramming like a high school kid. First I found a Spicebush cat clinging to our house, then I visited the Kalamazoo Nature center with a wonderful butterfly habitat! I have given the Butterfly Gardening seminar twice and today we released our first 4 monarchs. Tomorrow I will release at least 2 more and there are 43 chrysalides in various degrees of maturity hanging on my front porch. Today we had about 15 eggs, 9 hatchling's, and I would have to say about 30 cats in their 1st-4th instar. My children are getting used to watching the roadsides and memorizing where the milkweed is, on what streets and fields, and that almost daily I have to go out for my "fix", (fix dinner for the cats).

Tonight I came home and instead of finding the three butterflies that eclosed this morning, there were 5!!!! I have done all of this with no investment (since we had no money anyway, I was dx with cancer last Sept. then lost my job in June, and we have 5 children at home). I love your castles, but even at the $10.00 each right now it is not possible. We have a wonderful school system that I would like to present all of this to, but I need some guidance. Can you help me? The link to the posters is not working. Any other things I can do? I can present the fund raiser to the school and see what happens.

I also take a lot of pictures, so if you need any let me know!

Thank you,
Sherry Guyberson

Christopher LMF

Well, it turns out that only 9 actually survived. 10 hatched, but the 10th one didn't fluff up. I put it in the flower garden but it didn't end up going any where. The wind and rain didn't help. But the others all flew happily away. My daughter was enthralled - she's 3. She "supervised" the butterflies once they started to hatch. I put one on her little hand and it just hung out there for a bit. She may have had some residual sugar left over from a late afternoon snack. At any rate, it was the last one in the container thing and it just sat there for a bit. Then finally, a little breeze came up and it fluttered off, rather drunken-like. I had no idea or I would have had a camera ready...

Thanks again.

Mindy Clare

Our partial response: 9 out of ten is fantastic ! Nature is usually 3%...

Send in a note on our comment form and lets get your letter up here too!

In case you are wondering, we do get a few complaints...usually the one of my caterpillars died (it happens...and we reship) or could I get more free seeds or the best complaint we see....Why didn't your site tell me how addictive raising monarch would be. That complaint is usually on the order form.