One day the birds complained to the Great Father
“Why did you make butterflies so beautiful? We feel left out.”
“What would you have me do?” God asked.
“Give them a flaw,” the birds said.
“Well, how about I make them silent,” the Great Father said and so it is that butterflies have no mouths. The birds went away pleased.
But in the fullness of time they returned to complain again.
“Why is it all the butterflies come to visit you?”
“Because,” God said, “I am the only one who understands them and they come to talk to me.”
That is why you can make a prayer, make a wish, send it with a butterfly and it will go straight to God. No one else will hear it.
Samuel Woodham, a tour guide at Greathouse Butterfly Farm, loves telling that American Indian story.
Greathouse is on State Road 26, 15 miles east of Gainesville, two miles past 301. As soon as you go through the light for CR 1469, you will see the Greathouse Butterfly Farm sign on your right followed shortly by a driveway into a large parking lot. It is in Earleton, two miles west of Melrose.
The butterfly farm raises 45 species of Florida butterflies in long greenhouses. There is a garden plant section with butterfly plants for sale, an extensive garden area showing plantings to attract butterflies, a gift shop located inside an old family farmhouse and daily tours of the grounds and the greenhouses.
Tours are at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. seven days a week and last about an hour to an hour and a half. No reservations necessary. (call ahead, hours and tours change with the season). The fee for adults is $8, children and seniors $6.
The tour starts with a video explaining a butterfly’s life and then moves outdoors.
On sunny days it looks like wild butterflies have Greathouse marked with a huge X on their internal roadmaps. As we take the tour through winding garden paths, zebra longwings, the state butterfly, zip by. Monarch butterflies, bright orange wings with black markings, feed on flowers and lay eggs on milkweed. Butterflies of many colors and names unknown to me, fly by, taste a flower and photographers snap away.
If you ever wanted these winged wonders in your yard, a Greathouse tour provides a visual introduction to what it takes, plus just walking through the gardens is a delight.
Butterflies like fast food – the nectar in flowers like salvia and butterfly bush. They also need host plants – certain plants for different species to be used as hosts to lay eggs. Some examples: milkweed for monarchs and passion vine for zebra longwings.
Haven’t seen any butterflies around your area? It could be more than a lack of host and nectar plants. Butterflies are a good judge of how an ecological system is doing. They are defenseless against pesticides, so gardeners who use them would have to change their habits to accommodate butterflies.
Zane Greathouse started the farm after his student experiments turned into a fulltime job. A fifth grade science teacher in Gainesville, Zane wanted his classes to have a hands on experience with animals, but not the frog dissection or the token guinea pig living in the back of the classroom.
So he went for insects and brought in crystallis that were ready to hatch. Students were each given one and asked not to talk, just write and draw their experiences. All day long the butterflies emerged and flew around the room.
It didn’t take long before word got around and Zane was doing the same lesson all over the country. An old family farm, built before the Civil War, became Greathouse Butterfly Farm.
In the greenhouses thousands of butterflies are grown for shipments to botanical gardens, wedding releases, memorial services and other events.
After the tour, a few of us linger. Will a butterfly listen to our wishes? We go back down the garden path to give it a try.
If you go
What: Greathouse Butterfly Farm, Inc.
Where: 20329 State Road 26 East, Earleton, Fl 32631
Phone: (352) 475-2088
Website: www.greathousebutterflyfarm.com
E-mail: [email protected]
Closed: July 4th, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas
Reprinted with permission from the Observer newspaper. Lucy Beebe Tobias is a freelance writer, artist and photographer in Ocala, Florida. E mail: [email protected]