Weezy Deitrich, 5, watches a monarch butterfly inside a jar at the family's Jefferson Park home. [Photos by Jane Deitrich]
CHICAGO — Jane Deitrich and her three children don't need a TV.
For the past five years, the Jefferson Park mom has found butterfly eggs attached to milkweed plants in the alley behind her backyard and placed the eggs inside a small jar.
She and her kids — Simon, 9; Ramona, 8; and Weezy, 5 — then watch the eggs become caterpillars and eventually butterflies before they release them back into the wild. This month, the family is watching 11 monarchs transform from caterpillars into flying orange-and-black beauties.
"It's super easy and everyone should do it, especially if you have kids," Deitrich said. "It's magic."
Four generations of monarch butterflies make their way to and from Chicago every year. The first generation will lay eggs and die, two more generations will live about a month each before laying eggs and dying, and, finally, a fourth generation will embark on a multi-thousand-mile journey to their winter grounds in Mexico.
Justin Breen says the stay in the jar is brief for the monarchs:
Deitrich said she's become a veteran egg finder, even though they're only the size of a piece of couscous. Once inside the jar, the insects are given milkweed leaves to eat — that's the only plant they'll munch on — and a bit of water. The jar is covered with hole-poked plastic wrap to let the monarchs breathe.
"The kids love watching it," Deitrich said.
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