Butterflies and Gardens
Spring 2009 Volume V, Issue 2

Inside this issue

• Migration Begins:  Monarch Population Levels Down
• Is It Safe to Eat Peanut Butter Again??
• Growing Across America
• New Hope Farm – Community-Supported Agriculture
• Wisconsin Is Growing Its Own Food
• Giant Swallowtail Hatch Worth the Wait
• Happy Tonics Exhibits in New Mexico and Wisconsin, USA, in 2008
• Keeping a Healthy Local Food Supply Requires Thriving Bees
• With Wings
• Butterfly Memories

Migration Begins:  Monarch Population Levels Down
by Robin Irwin

Michoacán, Mexico – The monarchs are headed home, to their breeding grounds in the USA and Canada.  But this year the migrating population may be starting out at its lowest levels in several years.

Almost all of North America’s monarch butterflies spend the winter clustered on just 12 forested mountaintops in central Mexico.  According to Dr. Bill Calvert, who observed the spring breakup, the butterflies begin their migration by first gradually shifting to lower elevations.  Calvert witnessed this year’s events for Journey North, a Web site that tracks migrations for K-12 students and teachers. 

According to Mexican authorities, the overwintering population there covered approximately 4.8 hectares, the lowest density since 2005.  Experts at the University of Kansas (KU) believe even that estimate may be too high.  Dr. Chip Taylor at KU’s Monarch Watch believes that winter numbers may have occupied as little as between three and four hectares.  He attributes the low overwintering population to extensive cold rains on the monarchs’ breeding grounds in eastern and central United States during 2008.

Sources:  www.learner.org/jnorth  and www.monarchwatch.org

Photo:  bswarm Caption: 

Is It Safe to Eat Peanut Butter Again?
by Robin Irwin

Blakely, Georgia, USA – In January 2009, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) implemented one of the largest food safety actions in the nation’s history when it directed nearly 200 American companies to recall more than 2,100 products containing peanut butter and other peanut ingredients produced at the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) facilities in Blakely, Georgia, and Plainview, Texas.

The contamination was first discovered in a five-pound commercial-sized tin of peanut butter following a salmonella outbreak at a Minnesota nursing home.  Subsequent detective work by FDA investigators soon led to PCA’s Georgia and Texas factories.  The products were contaminated with the organism Salmonella typhimurium, which was implicated in the deaths of nine people.  In all, more than 700 individuals were stricken in at least 44 states.

Tragically, PCA’s Georgia plant had glossed over at least 12 separate incidents during the past two years – incidents in which internal testing discovered the presence of salmonella but the company nonetheless distributed the products following retesting.

Sources:  www.fda.gov, www.webmd.com, and www.cbsnews.com

At a congressional food safety hearing, officials from Peanut Corp. of America’s Georgia plant invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and refused to answer questions about company practices and safety inspections of their products.

Growing Across America
by Robin Irwin

Washington, DC, USA – For more than a decade, food activists such as The WhoFarm have lobbied successive presidential administrations to establish a functioning organic garden on the sprawling grounds of the White House.  The White House Organic Farm, they cajoled, would raise awareness for local, sustainable food to an unprecedented level.  But from Clinton to Bush, their pleas fell on unresponsive ears. 

Then natural food proponent Alice Waters, chef at Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, California, had the opportunity to bring up the idea with Michelle Obama.  “I don’t know why we couldn’t have one,” Waters quotes the First Lady saying.  “It seemed like the most natural thing in the world.”

Late in March 2009, Mrs. Obama and a group of children from a Washington elementary school broke ground for what’s being called the White House Kitchen Garden. 

For the first time since Eleanor Roosevelt’s Victory Garden in 1943, produce will be raised on White House grounds.  The 1,100 square foot kitchen garden will sprout more than 55 varieties of vegetables, fruit, and herbs.  The selection was put together by White House chefs, who will use the produce in meals for the First Family and at state dinners.

The garden will even be self-pollinating, thanks to two beehives which will be tended by a White House carpenter who is also a beekeeper.

Note:  Sandy Stein and Mary Ellen Ryall met with fellow “TheWhoFarmMobile” exhibitors in Tesuque Pueblo, New Mexico, at the 3rd Annual Symposium for Sustainable Food & Seed Sovereignty in September 2008. 

Sources:  The Washington Post, ABC News.  www.TheWhoFarm.org

Food activists Daniel Bowman Simon and his partner Casey Gustawarow planted a garden on the roof of the “TheWhoFarmMobile” and traveled the country promoting an organic farm on the grounds of the White House.  
Photo © Sandy Stein

A dream comes true 
Photo © Sandy Stein

New Hope Farm – Community-Supported Agriculture
by Mary Ellen Ryall

Florence, South Carolina, USA - I recently spoke with honorary member Jeannette Ruby and her nephew Jerry (Bud) McLamb, the owner of New Hope Farm.  The farm and family has an interesting history. 

The first inhabitants were Pee Dee Indians.  According to Bud, the Indians lived on the land until about 1807.  To learn more about the tribe, please visit http://www.peedeeindiantribeofsc.com/   The l10-acre Old Carraway Farm has been in Bud and Jeannette’s family since the mid 1850s.  Bud confirms, “There were no slave laborers.”   He goes on to say, “Four generations of honest, hard-working families toiled over this land to make a life for themselves.”  Families lived in simple two-room homes often no bigger than 400-500 square feet.  Bud recounts, “In the 1930s my grandfather helped work the farm during The Depression.”

Bud is bringing the family farm back into production as community-supported agriculture (CSA) and he is right on time with his sustainability efforts.  For his first year, he told me that he planned to offer 40 families the opportunity to share in the farm’s produce.  The property has never used chemical fertilizers or pesticides.  Nature and animals abound here.  The CSA effort is paying off, and all 40 shares were sold.  This is wonderful news, considering we are in the worst global economic reality since the Great Depression.  We are all going to need to buy from local food sources.

Let’s support our local farmers, who are doing their best to help their families stay on the small farm and produce wholesome food for their local communities.

Wisconsin Is Growing Its Own Food

Shell Lake, Wisconsin, USA – The Energy Independent Communities Task Force recently met with John Maher, a local farmer’s market organizer, to discuss how to set up a farmer’s market in Shell Lake.  Donna Barnes Haesemeyer, the mayor of Shell Lake, spearheaded the idea of a farmers’ market in 2008.  Happy Tonics member growers are interested in selling food produce in our green space next to the building.  Local farmers told Happy Tonics officers that they couldn’t make it with selling food at a farmers’ market only one or two days of the week.  Happy Tonics invited them to sell their produce on days that the farmers’ market isn’t open.

A year ago the mayor, Spooner Agricultural Research Station area agricultural development agent Kevin Schoessow, Happy Tonics officers, and members of Lakeland Manor discussed starting a community garden in Shell Lake.  The think tank concluded that the residents of Shell Lake were not ready in 2008 because of the small number of community residents attending the meeting.  At that time, Schoessow suggested that the community needed to start with small steps.

In 2009, the Spooner Agricultural Research Station is offering “Recession-Resistant Gardening Classes” for beginners.   The events are free and open to the public.  Instructors will teach gardening basics for growing vegetables and flowers. 

Giant Swallowtail Hatch Worth the Wait
by Eunice Smith

Orlando, Florida, USA – Member Eunice Smith recently found that hatching a giant swallowtail chrysalis was an event well worth waiting for.

“I was looking on my citrus trees one day and found three scary-looking swallowtail caterpillars,” she writes.  “I brought them indoors and put them in my terrarium.  The first two came out of their chrysalises within two weeks.  The third one took its time.  A month came and went.  I started to think it might be dead.  I thought maybe it might be hibernating.  Regardless, I’d never before seen a delay like this, so I just decided to wait it out.”

“Three months passed.  I’d kind of been ignoring the terrarium when one morning I finally noticed a big, beautiful giant swallowtail flying around in there.  My husband Tom and I carried it outside to a flowering bush it could sip nectar from.  I never saw a butterfly so happy to be free.”

Note:  According to butterfly author Elizabeth Balmer, “The [giant swallowtail] butterfly can be distinguished by the diagonal band of yellow spots on each forewing.  Large yellow spots also line the margins of each wing and there are yellow eyespots on the tails.  Its background color is black, as is its upper body; however, its abdomen is yellow with a central black streak.  Two small red and black eyespots mark the inner edge of each hindwing.”

Source:  A Pocket Guide to Butterflies and Moths, Elizabeth Balmer, Parragon Books, 2006.

Giant swallowtail takes to Captain Tom Smith’s arm
Photo © Eunice Smith

Happy Tonics Exhibits in New Mexico and Wisconsin, USA, in 2008

Happy Tonics was invited to exhibit at the 2009 Water Conservation & Xeriscape Expo in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on 28 February and 1 March.  Sandy Stein and Mary Ellen Ryall met fellow exhibitor Bob Markham at the Tesuque Pueblo 3rd Annual Symposium for Sustainable Food & Seed Sovereignty this past September.  Bob serves on the board at Xeriscape Council of New Mexico and recommended Happy Tonics as an exhibitor.  Scott Varner, executive director of Xeriscape Council of New Mexico, Inc., contacted the nonprofit and offered to sponsor us with a table and space.  We were honored to participate.  Afterwards, Scott wrote, “There were 11,000 attendees.”  That is tremendous, considering that last year there were only 10,000 participants.  Many people throughout the Southwest understand the importance of sustainability of water and xeriscape landscaping.

On 21 March, Happy Tonics exhibited at the Ninth Annual New Ventures Gardening Seminar at Northwoods School in Minong, Wisconsin.  The attendance included 250 enthusiastic gardeners.  Many of the attendees wanted to share their butterfly stories with Happy Tonics officers and were invited to attend the Second Annual Earth Day Event on April 25, 2009, in Shell Lake.

In February and March, Happy Tonics sponsored the Winter Environmental Education Film Series in Washburn County, Wisconsin.  The films Papalotzin and Not for Sale were well received by residents in Shell Lake and Minong, and the message of sustainability goes forward.

Exhibit collaborator Earth Watch Ohio with Happy Tonics in Albuquerque  
Photo © Scott Varner

Keeping a Healthy Local Food Supply Requires Thriving Bees

Shell Lake, Wisconsin, USA – Recently beekeeper Paul Schaefer told Happy Tonics officers that 50 percent of his honeybee hives made it through the cold Wisconsin winter.  Schaefer pointed out that a total of 21 hives survived in 2009.  Normally in summer hives can host as many as 50,000 to 60,000 bees.  Most bees in the summer live only two to three weeks.  Those that hatch in the fall are the bees that winter over.

It was a different story for Ron and Christine Wilson of Balsam Lake.  Christine confirmed that they lost all their hives, numbering six or seven colonies, this winter.  She mentioned that the bees couldn’t fly when the temperature dropped to 40 below zero, and unfortunately the bees froze to death.  Robin Irwin, an Experience Works employee with Happy Tonics, says that he once raised honeybees and it is a common phenomenon for bees to die off in Wisconsin’s freezing winters.  

Note:  According to Rob Irwin, this observation hive contains pollen in different colors.  You can see this in the photo, along with shining honey and the tiny white larvae, or brood.  

Ron Wilson’s living honeybee colony in 2008 
Photo © Mary Ellen Ryall

With Wings
by Shirl Yeazle

With wings of orange and black,
I fly about the day,
Looking for a flower to sit upon
And then be on my way.  

I flutter about here and there
Without a care.
Soon I’ll be on my way,
On a journey south.  

I’ll be back again
some spring day.
Just to bring you cheer,
For my beauty will be near.  

Note:  Mary Ellen Ryall met Shirl Yeazl of Spooner, Wisconsin, USA, at an artesian well that bubbles forth from a sweet little woods in Shell Lake.  Shirl always signs her notes, “Your friend from the well.”  

Photo: monarchblue Caption: 

Monarchs like to rest on morning glory leaves  
Photo © Mary Ellen Ryall

Butterfly Memories
by Susan E. Engebrecht

Wausau, Wisconsin – Member Susan Engebrecht writes, “My husband and I were talking about adding milkweed to the edge of our garden.  We have a number of butterfly plants there already.  It was in that garden where grandson Jacob said, ‘I can catch the flying flower.’  Of course the butterfly saw him coming and circled above his head before moving on.”  To view things through the eyes of children keeps life fresh and exciting.