Article on Monarch Festival in Longfellow Messenger

This month’s Longfellow-Nokomis Messenger has a great article on the Minneapolis Monarch Festival, which will be held this year on September 10 at Lake Nokomis.

Get close to monarchs during Lake Nokomis festival Sept. 10
By Tesha M. Christensen

Send a monarch butterfly on its amazing journey from Minnesota to the mountains of Michoacan, Mexico during the Monarch Festival at Lake Nokomis on Saturday, Sept. 10, 2011.

“It doesn’t really matter who you are or where you come from, people find the monarch fascinating,” said Nokomis East Neighborhood Association (NENA) Executive Director Rita Ulrich.

The purpose of the Monarch Festival, according to Lis Young-Isebrand of the Monarch Lab at the University of Minnesota, “is to bring our diverse community of people together to celebrate and learn about monarchs.”

She pointed out: “Adult monarchs weigh less than a paper clip (about half a gram), yet they are able to fly over 2,000 miles to Mexico in the fall and back to Texas in the early spring. And, they are beautiful! The monarch is simply amazing.”

Read the full story…