Butterflies - June 13, 2026@goldenoakfarm

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On Saturday I had planned to go to the garden early, but my friend had written on Friday afternoon to remind me we were going to the grand re-opening of the Magic Wings Butterfly conservatory at 10:45AM.

So I stayed inside and puttered around before getting ready to go.

The main draw, besides butterflies, had been the food truck offering lobster foods. My friend LOVES lobster!

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So we had to check out the offering before we went in to decide what we wanted for lunch. Inside we found lots of areas for venders and for activities for kids, like face painting and small craft making.

The entrance to the butterflies is through the gift shop so we went in and found ourselves in a small room with various insects and animals. It was rather crowded so we didn’t spend too much time there.

There’s an entry area that prevents butterflies from leaving with you that had blowers. Once in the conservatory, we were astounded by the huge number of large blue butterflies flying everywhere.

They were impossible for me to photograph with my old camera. Later on I managed to find one resting on the bridge in the main building.

There were lots of other smaller butterflies also flying around but many would alight on something so I could get photos.

Some had fascinating patterns on the outside of the wings.

And some, like the blue butterflies, had color on the inside.

I waited for this blue butterfly to open his wings for a good while when he was on this feeding station, but he never did.

One of the blue butterflies landed briefly on me but another kind landed on my friend and stayed until we swept it onto a leaf.

One of the cool things we saw early on in the main building were these tiny quail. They weren’t any bigger than 5 week old chicken chicks. They had feeding stations throughout the foliage in the main building.

There were all kinds of flowers and so many different kinds of plants, some huge. It was very jungly in all the area. There was a waterfall area, a koi pond, a gazebo for resting (that the butterflies flew through all the time) and many, many benches to sit and enjoy the flying butterflies.

We went out at noon and got our lobster. Hers was a Connecticut style roll and mine was lobster tacos. They were excellent.

We ate inside in one of the areas then went back in to experience more butterflies. It had gotten quite hot in the main building so I went into one of the smaller areas and found a bench in the shade where it was cooler.

We sat and watched butterflies for about an hour before we were butterflied out. I was home again by 2PM.

I wish I could drive because they have a reasonable entrance fee and a unlimited year’s pass and I’d go and just enjoy the butterflies many times, especially when there weren’t a lot of people.

I just laid on the couch and read, finishing ‘The Valley of Horses’ until bedtime at 8PM.

On Sunday I need to get the mesclun mulched, and try to plant something else before it gets hot.