Our only docent-led tour was at Lotus Land. We heard fabulous stories about the very rich and very frugal Madame Ganna Walska. She loved looking for free thinks in her chauffeur-driven limo, like the slag glass pictured here. The visitor center with plants for sale was once the bath house for the pool. Now the pool has lotus and other water-loving plants in it. The very large very expensive ant sculptures out front were impressive. One was half underground burrowing, another was laying eggs.
As an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, I studied Conservation of Natural Resources. I took a couple of entomology classes and became very interested in insects. After I graduated, I held several jobs working with bugs: in the fields of central California, the forests of Connecticut and Idaho, and the labs of Berkeley. Then I went to grad school and studied entomology at UC Riverside and UC Berkeley (back in the olden days when UCB had an entomology department). When my kids were little, I wanted to share my love of insects with them, so I started a butterfly garden before butterfly gardens were popular. Then of course, their teachers asked me to bring caterpillars into the classroom and I started doing classroom presentations. I do presentations in elementary schools, provide teacher trainings, teach adult school classes, and bring live insect specimens to garden fairs. My book is perfect for helping elementary school kids learn about butterflies.
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