The White House Plan to Save the Monarch Butterfly: Build a Butterfly Highway

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9. Our neighbor is the same way and we are organic farmers

We use No artificial fertilizers or pesticides. Yet I think our neighbors use every chemical allowed to be put on their lawn. We keep a 30 foot buffer between their chemically enhanced lawn and our pastures.

But it does make an immediate difference. One year we had a huge flock? or group of butterflies land in one of our back field's maple trees. It was fall and at first I thought they were leaves being blown around by the wind but then I noticed they were going back to the tree. It was brown, gold and black butterflies. They covered the tree for about 30 minutes. Then they flew straight up and away. I thought they would spread out over our neighbors property but they didn't. It was as if they knew about the chemicals all over the lawn. Later I heard on the news that a huge swarm of butterflies was picked up by radar near the airport.

We have also had our lichen come back to our farm. It had gone away but it was always in our nearby woods. But starting about a year ago it has come to cover almost every tree and post around. But as you get closer to our chemical loving neighbors' property it disappears. It's kind of funny in some places. Where their property butts up to a real tall post we use to hang an electric wire that attaches to the electric fence, the top half is covered by 3 different types of lichen, while the bottom half is empty.

Keep up the chemical free lawn and soon you will notice differences. But know you are making an impact on your immediate environment.