CHICAGO — Some families have summer lemonade stands. Chicago's Deitrich family proudly sports a butterfly stand of sorts.
Jane Deitrich and her three kids — Simon, 10; Ramona, 9; and Weezy, 6 — have been busy collecting butterfly eggs this summer and selling them for a buck apiece to neighbors. The eggs also come with a hand-drawn illustration of a butterfly's life cycle — from egg to colorful flying insect — that the children make themselves. So far the Jefferson Park family has sold about $35 worth of eggs, Jane Deitrich said.
"We always get a kick out of the texts we receive of our neighbors and friends releasing their first butterflies," said Jane Deitrich, who's been collecting butterflies and raising them with her kids at their home for about 10 years. "It's hard not to get hooked once you've done it once."
Deitrich and her kids in the past have collected mostly Monarch butterfly eggs, but they're having an extremely difficult time finding them this year. Most of the eggs this year have been from black swallowtail butterflies, which lay their eggs on parsley, dill, Queen Anne's lace and other members of the carrot family of plants. Deitrich said her kids don't have any problem spotting the eggs, which are "small, perfectly round and light yellow."
"Each egg is smaller than a piece of couscous, but my girls seem to be able to spot them as if they were wearing neon signs," Jane Deitrich said.
Ramona Deitrich holds a hand-drawn illustration of a butterfly's life cycle. [Jane Deitrich]
Once they find the eggs, they either keep them for themselves in predator-free glass containers or sell them to neighbors. Jane Deitrich put an announcement on Facebook about selling the eggs and said she received "dozens of responses."
Enclosing the eggs in a jar gives the future caterpillars and butterflies a much better chance of survival. The insects are given leaves to eat and a bit of water. The jar is covered with hole-poked plastic wrap to let them breathe.
In her decade of raising butterflies, Deitrich said only one butterfly has died before she set it free.
"By bringing them in to raise, we can protect them from disease, predators, bad weather and starvation," she said. "Any butterflies we can raise mitigate this damage, help to restore the population and raise awareness among our friends and families about the rich ecosystem hiding in our urban landscapes."
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