BUTTERFLY LIVES ARE BRIEF

Summer outdoor temperatures have arrived, 80 to 81 degrees although the humidity is still low; hence, a delightful open roofed ride to the Fredrick Meijer's Sculture Gardens off East Beltline Road in Grand Rapids. What appears to be a 100 acre site, there are outdoor and indoor sculpture displays including a Leonardo DiVinci inspired 24 foot bronze horse. Although the clay molds for the horse were destroyed when French troops over ran Milan Italy, the sketches remained and Fredrick Meijers commissioned the horse to be reserected in bronze as a center piece for his sculture garden.

What has captured the imagination of the people of our State however, is the Conservatory of Butterflies. Within a multistoried glass and aluminum building, air temperature maintained at 80 degrees F and almost 100% humidity, is the largest butterfly conservatory in the world. Butterflies in chrysalis form, grown on butterfly farms in Asia and Central America, are flown to Grand Rapids, set inside an incubator where they hatch and dry their wings to a gackle of elementary school children and walk-about retired folk. Once all water is gone from their wings, they begin to fly and are released into the Conservatory. The butterflies lives are brief, usually two weeks. 90% of the chrysalises hatch, once emerged, butterflies fly about this tropical garden, lighting everso gently on the children who are standing still. They flit amongst the palms and philodendrons and the multitude of tropical forest plants. Nectar is supplied in pods, over-ripen fruits (I wonder where they get their over ripened mangos, Meijer's maybe?) sits along the ground. Seed eating birds fly in this forest as well. Volunteer instructors tell any one who is listening about the butterflies, and, as a special attraction from March 1st to May 13th, the Clear Butterfly. That's right, the wings of the butterfly are clear see through. The structural architecture is preserved, but it looks as if there is no substance inbetween. We are told, that in reality, this type of butterfly has so few scales on its wings, that the delicate membrane appears transparent. Hence, they blend into whatever environment they inhabit. The wings of other butterflies have many more scales and have a variety of protective camoflage markings. Our egress from the Conservatory was through a double door room, where we are asked to turn around to be sure that no butterfly remains on us as we leave.

After the butterfly Conservatory, we walked portions of the indoor and outdoor Sculpture Gardens, found the 24 foot horse, had a picture of KK beneath the horse.

Our ride home was open aired, Spring barely visible in the farmland we saw, although the faint green of Winter Wheat was beginning to show as it emerges from its winter germination. After a dinner at Sahara's Middle Eastern Resturant, great humis and kabobs, we arrived home in the first sprinkles of rain.