Recently a group of friends, my son, and I went to Pendleton’s Country Market to see the Butterfly Bio-Vila. We had a small tour (perfect length for the kids to stay entertained) and a tractor-pulled hayride to the Bio-Villa. The tractor ride passed a right-turn only maze for the kids to play in afterwards and an area where kids can climb up towers, tires, and tricycles and have fun in the country sun. The main attraction was the butterflies. I loved seeing all the kids getting so excited about the butterflies and seeing butterflies actually coming out of their chrysalises and dry their wings! All the little kids ran up and down the brick road looking at the caterpillars on the parsley and butterflies fluttering around, occasionally landing on one of us and on nearby plants.

Something that really was fun to me was tagging the butterflies after playing around and after most of the crowd had left. They brought out some butterflies and placed a small sticker on their wing, and placed them on our heads and hands to let them warm up and fly away. The sticker has a number and can be tracked via internet! We can track them by visiting Monarch Watch. They told me that these butterflies should be in the system by Jan… I guess it will be fun to see where our butterflies end up! Of the three butterflies we tagged, I only got one tag code which was MLS 911. Let’s see how far she gets (she was female)!

Showing us the caterpillar’s antennae

Some kids (and parents) went into the no-left turn maze.

Butterfly coming out of its Chrysalis

The children loved going on a small bike ride

Some children took their pics in front of the caterpillar grow chart

Pushing along with a toy dump truck

“There’s a butterfly on your head!”