After raising five children to school age, I studied Horticulture at our local college. Steve built a couple of greenhouses for me putting me into business raising all sorts of plants. Our problem wasn't raising plants; it was attracting customers to the middle of nowhere. We eventually turned to herbs.

At our herb nursery we grew six hundred species of herbs including fennel, parsley, dill, water hyssop, and milkweed. At the time I didn't know that these were host plants. My sister started adding plants to her yard for butterflies and not only encouraged me to do so. Not only encourage me, she would also purchase them and drive an hour to plant them in my gardens.

While eating lunch at the picnic table in our display garden, I watched an Eastern Black Swallowtail laying rich creamy yellow eggs on fennel. The next day I hurried back to see if there was a change in the eggs and noticed that they were empty shells. As I wondered what had happened, I saw an Eastern Black Swallowtail laying eggs again. A wasp chased off the butterfly and next started visiting the eggs. I love nature but this was too much. I took the plants with the eggs into a protected area to rear them. When they pupated and emerged, I released the adults. My husband tolerated but limited the time and money I spent on this hobby. A few months later I found that I could support my hobby of saving butterflies' lives. As Steve noticed the checks I was depositing into our bank account, he encouraged the time I spent with caterpillars. Within a few months this hobby became a full time job. We not only saved butterflies lives, we could bring enjoyment to thousands of people by doing so. We could also make a living at the same time. Starting with the nursery gave us a boost by having a framework into which we could bring butterflies and build our butterfly farm.