Deth

I was out from this morning watering the hibiscus and hanging plant when I noticed the milkweed. Once again I looked closely at it and really didn’t see any signs of caterpillars as it’s been this summer. I saw Monarchs visit the flowers and even lay eggs, but nothing really seems to have come of it this year.

There have been a couple of caterpillars that Molly noticed, but I haven’t taken notice of any.

I did notice that at one point the milkweed plants were loaded with aphids as usual, but then last week I saw a bunch of large ladybugs there. Since then, the number of aphids has really gone down, so I guess they’re doing their thing and eating them.

It’s sad that there really haven’t been caterpillars, though. Normally, by this time the plants are eaten down to just bare stems with loads of caterpillars crawling around.

I hope that the lack of butterflies has been a local thing. I’m hoping it was due to the constant dump trucks going through here during the peak of summer for a construction site nearby.