Story & photos by Theresa DiMenno

As I settle in to write this piece, the monarch butterflies are filtering through the central  flyway of Texas. It is a chilly morning in Austin as we had our first cold front of the  season last evening. Fifty degrees feels like forty five, cloudy with twenty mph winds, and sporadic drizzle. The northern breeze could push the monarchs along their  southern migratory journey to Mexico, but the cold and rain will keep them in place until  the weather clears. They prefer a moderate to warm temperature, and rain on the wing  is not a butterfly’s friend.