UT's Butterfly Festival

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Thank you everyone who attended the Butterfly Festival at UT Arboretum near Oak Ridge. It was a great time, especially the finale: the release of 300 monarch butterflies that had everyone chasing them around the beautiful location to get photographs.

Focusing on hands-on and experiential learning, the fourth annual Butterfly Festival offered three educational sessions including mine and two viewing tents containing monarch and painted lady butterflies. The UT Insect Zoo, operated by entomology and plant pathology professor Jerome Grant and UT graduate students, showcased preserved and live insects found in Tennessee and throughout the world.  

And thank you to everyone who attended my opening session: Monarchs! From egg to migration. I just love speaking in the arboretum's new auditorium and it was just great fun being around so many bug-loving people.

The UT Arboretum is a project of the UT Forest Resources AgResearch and Education Center. The 250-acre research and educational arboretum is part of a greater 2,204-acre research forest. The arboretum serves as an outdoor classroom to university students in a variety of fields and as a community resource with numerous interpretive nature trails and ecological points of interest.

AND, if that wasn't enough. I got to visit with Josie and Lucy, two of my former summer camp kids, now all grown up. Well, certainly too old to be called "summer camp kids." It just seems like only yesterday that we were catching crawdads in Toll Creek. Thank you, Mom Sara for taking our photo!

Thank you Michelle, Janet and the rest of the arboretum staff! Great job!

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