PHIL WIELAND: Curing a case of the (monarch) butterflies

Sometimes you've just got to stop and smell the butterflies.

I love watching butterflies, especially as opposed to mowing lawn, cleaning gutters, unclogging a toilet or other household chores. Valpo Parks had a monarch butterfly meet and greet Tuesday offering a close-up look at these beautiful orange and black insects.

When the weather turned out to be sunny and warm, i realized I really needed to learn more about monarchs personally.

The session was held at Foundation Meadows Park, where parks horticulturist Steve Martinson created a monarch way station a year ago in a two-acre section of prairie plants. I thought he was creating a weigh station and wondered how he would get the skittish critters to land on the scales to see if any stayed too long at the nectar bar.

About 20 people gathered near the park's Butterfly Meadows and Caterpillar Crossing playground for the tour. The air was filled with children's happy, high-pitched squeals mixed with the occasional recorded raptor's shriek from the playground.

To this was added the soft flutter of monarch wings from a netted cage brought by Laura Turner and Linda Mapes of the master gardeners program at the Purdue Extension Service. Several recently hatched monarchs were ready to launch on their annual migration to Mexico, and the women described the butterflies' lifespan.

Offered a chance to have a monarch perch on their hand, two small children were reluctant. Placed on an adult's hand, the butterflies waited only a moment before flitting away like one of those raptors was on its tail. Each child watched then waved bye-bye to the butterfly.

The naturalized area around the playground is a sea of goldenrod with clumps of purple asters, both of which attract monarchs like yellow jackets to the Popcorn Fest. During a stroll along the park paths, we saw several monarchs, or it might have been the same ones carefully trained to leapfrog the line and reappear.

Mapes and Turner urged people to plant milkweed to attract monarchs, which lay their eggs on the bottom of the plants' leaves in addition to enjoying the nectar of the milkweed flowers. In some towns, a person could be fined for harboring noxious weeds trying to create a butterfly bed and breakfast.

The monarch migration route runs through Texas, which is bad enough in the best of times, but nectar is likely to be scarce during the current drought and wildfire conditions there.

Plus, on the return migration next spring, Gov. Rick Perry might have them all executed for illegally crossing the border.

The opinions are those of the writer. He can be reached at phil.wieland@nwi.com or (219) 548-4352.