Milkweeds

I probably should be commenting on the reprehensible Ryan budget or talking about the new anti-gay pope, but instead I want to tell you about a small and easy step you can take to help the environment.

If you have milkweeds on your property, don’t pull them out or spray them with herbicides.  Allow them to grow.  They are the food for monarch butterflies.  Monarchs migrate to Mexico in the winter.  They once covered almost 60 acres of tree branches in their Mexican winter habitat.  You may have seen pictures of thousands of trees totally covered with butterflies.

Last year they covered less than four acres.  One problem is that most midwestern farmers are planting “Round-up Ready” corn and soybeans.  Those are genetically modified crops that are then sprayed with Monsanto’s herbicide Round-up.  It kills every plant except the soybeans and corn.  It kills all the milkweeds.  The monarchs, lacking food, then die.

A world without monarch butterflies is a diminished world.  Let your milkweeds grow.