http://www.birchwoodbutterflyranch.com/

Birchwood Butterfly Ranch, Birchwood, WI (2026)

08/31/2026

🍎🐛 CECROPIA CATERPILLAR UPDATE: WE HAVE A COCOON! 🐛🍎

Remember the giant, colorful Cecropia moth caterpillars we’ve been keeping tabs on in our little apple orchard? Well… LOOK WHAT WE FOUND! 👀✨

One of our chunky little caterpillar friends has officially tucked itself in for the long haul, spinning a cocoon safely beneath the base protector of one of our apple trees. 🥹🌳

And this isn’t just a quick nap. Cecropia moths typically spend the entire winter inside their cocoons, waiting out the snow, cold and all the other Northwoods nonsense before emerging as absolutely STUNNING adult moths in late spring or early summer. ❄️➡️🌸

Which means we now know exactly where at least ONE future Cecropia moth is hiding! 🙌

You better believe we’ll be keeping a very close eye on this little cocoon next spring. We would LOVE to set up one of our critter cams and capture the moment this beauty emerges, unfurls those enormous wings and makes its grand debut at the BBR. 🎥🦋✨

For now, though… sleep tight, little buddy. You’ve got a Wisconsin winter to get through. 😂❄️💤

Nature is SO COOL. Sometimes the best treasures are hiding right under an apple tree. 🍎💚

08/28/2026

We're so excited to be featured on Meanwhile in Birchwood 's new YouTube channel later tonight! We had so much fun when Lexi and her daughter visited earlier this summer.♥🦋

08/28/2026

🦋 A little sneak peek of something VERY special! 🦋

Back in early July, we had the absolute pleasure of visiting the Birchwood Butterfly Ranch and meeting the wonderful owners, Danielle & Dean! 💛

I got to sit down with them and learn all about how the Butterfly Ranch came to be, what they do, and SO much about butterflies. And let me tell you… I learned a LOT! 🦋

Amelia had the BEST time exploring and learning, and we got to see caterpillars, chrysalises, butterflies, and all the magic that happens behind the scenes. 🐛➡️🦋

Their beautiful property near Spider Lake is something you really have to see for yourself—and they even have an Airbnb!

✨ Important: The Butterfly Ranch is by appointment only, so be sure to contact Danielle & Dean before visiting.

And now for the exciting part… 👀

The FULL interview + video vlog is premiering on my BRAND-NEW YouTube channel TONIGHT! 🎉

This is just a little preview of what’s coming. I can’t wait to share their story and give you a peek into this incredible place right here in our own backyard.

🦋 What are YOU most excited to see?
Drop it in the comments! ⬇️

And stay tuned… Meanwhile in Birchwood is officially coming to YouTube! 🎥❤️

08/27/2026

🌸 It’s the little things. 🌸

Danielle here... One of my favorite little rituals before guests arrive for their stay at the Butterfly Bungalow is wandering out to my cut flower garden, scissors in hand, and choosing a few zinnias and dahlias for their bedside tables. 💐

It’s such a tiny thing. But somehow, it brings me a goofy amount of joy. (Dean rolls his eyes at me)

These are the same flowers I watch countless butterflies and bumblebees visit all summer long—and I love the idea that now our guests get to enjoy them, too. A little piece of the garden brought inside. A little bit of pollinator love waiting beside the bed. 🦋🐝🌼

I've discovered that one of the unexpected joys of hosting guests is getting to create these small moments for people. Fresh flowers. Farm fresh eggs from our chickens. Homemade treats that we're currently canning. A campfire prepped and ready to light. Little things that say, "we’re really glad you’re here."

Because when you're away from home, sometimes the smallest touches are the ones that make you feel the most special. ❤️

And selfishly? I think putting them there might bring me just as much joy as I hope they bring our guests.

Here’s to fresh cut flowers, thoughtful little touches, and finding joy in making someone else’s day just a tiny bit brighter. 🌸🦋

08/26/2026

🐾🦋 HAPPY NATIONAL DOG DAY FROM THE POLLINATOR POINTERS! 🦋🐾

“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.” — Will Rogers ❤️

Around here, life simply wouldn’t be as joyful, funny, messy, adventurous—or complete—without Hank & Ernie, the official Pollinator Pointers of the Birchwood Butterfly Ranch. 🐶🐶🦋

If you’ve visited the BBR, chances are you’ve met these two. They LOVE our guests… and they each have their preferred form of payment:

🤎 Ernie: Head rubs, please. Gentle, sweet, sensitive and just an all-around very good boy.

🤎 Hankie: B***y scratches. Lots of investigative sniffing. 😂 Hank is our resident troublemaker, mischief-maker and general supervisor of absolutely everything happening on the ranch.

And despite being Elhew Pointers—actual BIRD DOGS—these two somehow live quite peacefully alongside our flock of free-ranging laying hens. 🐔🐶 We’re not asking too many questions. We’re just grateful everyone has apparently agreed to the terms of the treaty. 😂

What they do take very seriously is their job as Pollinator Pointers. 🦋👉

Butterflies. Caterpillars. Snakes. Frogs. Porcupines. Random suspicious movement in the grass…

THEY WILL POINT IT. 😂

We’re dog people through and through around here. ❤️ And we truly believe that our lives wouldn’t be half as joyful, interesting or downright FUN without these two goofy boys trotting alongside us.

There’s something extraordinary about the love of a dog. They don’t care what kind of day you’ve had, what you accomplished, what you look like or whether everything went according to plan. They just want to be wherever you are.

And somehow, that makes wherever you are feel a little more like home. 🥹🐾❤️

Happy National Dog Day to Hankie & Ernie—and to all the wonderful pups who make our lives infinitely better.

🐶 Are you celebrating a furry family member today? DROP THOSE PUP PICS IN THE COMMENTS! 👇📸 We would absolutely LOVE to meet your fur babies!

🐾🦋

08/25/2026

🌸🦋🐝 POLLINATOR PALS! 🐝🦋🌸

Today one of our cup flower plants turned into the hottest lunch spot in town 😂🌼 — with an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail 🦋 and a fuzzy little bumblebee 🐝 sharing the spotlight (and apparently the lunch table!).

It’s one of our favorite times of year because our cup flowers attract sooo many pollinators! The swallowtails are really showing off right now. Same at your place? 💛🖤 As summer gives that little nod to fall 🍃☀️, the flowers are buzzing, the butterflies are gliding, and every walk through the garden feels a little like a treasure hunt. 🔎🌻

So keep your eyes peeled! 👀 You never know who you’ll catch sharing a bloom. 🦋🐝🌸

✨ A couple fun pollinator facts:

🐝 Bumblebees can “buzz pollinate!” They grab onto certain flowers and vibrate their flight muscles, literally shaking the pollen loose. Talk about working for your lunch! 😂

🦋 Eastern Tiger Swallowtails are BIG beauties! They’re among the largest butterflies we see in our neck of the woods, with wingspans that can reach more than 5 inches. 😲

Sometimes the coolest things happening in nature are happening on ONE little flower. 🌸

You just have to look closer. 👀💚

🦋🐝🌼

08/24/2026

🍄🌲 Meanwhile, in the woods surrounding the Birchwood Butterfly Ranch… IT’S SHROOMIE TIME! 🌲🍄

Well… almost. 😂

It’s been a pretty dry year here at the BBR, which means our usual mushroom extravaganza has been a little more subdued than normal. But we’re crossing our fingers for some good soaking rains because we know what’s hiding beneath that forest floor… THE MOOSHIES!!! 🍄👀

Danielle absolutely LOVES foraging for wild mushrooms—and perhaps loves cooking and eating them even more. 😋 Over the years, the woods at the BBR have treated us to an incredible assortment of edible fungi, including:

🍄 Chicken of the Woods
🍄 Hen of the Woods
🍄 Shrimp of the Woods
🍄 Lion’s Mane
🍄 Hedgehog Mushrooms
🍄 Morels
🍄 Black Trumpets
🍄 Oyster Mushrooms
🍄 Lobster Mushrooms
🍄 Boletes
🍄 Chanterelles
🍄 Giant Puffballs
🍄 …and plenty of other funky fungi!

There is something ridiculously fun about wandering through the woods staring at the ground until suddenly—JACKPOT. 🍄🎰

If you’d like to learn more about mushroom identification, we HIGHLY recommend checking out the books by local mushroom educator and expert Tavis Lynch and following his page Tavis's Mushrooms. He is incredibly knowledgeable, entertaining, kind, and an amazing resource for anyone who wants to become a smarter—and safer—mushroom hunter. 📚🍄

And for our fellow foragers, here’s something you should know…

Guests staying at the Butterfly Bungalow are absolutely welcome to forage in the BBR woods. 🙌🍄

That’s right. We don’t gatekeep our mooshies. 😂

So grab your favorite foraging buddy, pack your mushroom basket and boots, and make a fall weekend out of it! 🍂🥾🍄 Stay at the Butterfly Bungalow and spend your days exploring our trails and woods, nearby public land, and even sections of the Ice Age Trail, which is just a hop, skip, and mushroom hunt away.

Then head back to your tiny home in the field, cook up your treasures, light a campfire, listen to the owls, gaze at the stars, and enjoy a little Northwoods solitude. 🌲🔥✨🦉

🦋 Migration Special: $175/night
Book directly with us and save:
https://birchwoodbutterflyranch.com/butterfly-bungalow/

Prefer Airbnb? No problem! You can book the Butterfly Bungalow there, too:
https://bit.ly/4xhXNDn

We would LOVE to host some fellow mushroom hunters this fall! 🍄💚 And now we just need Mother Nature to turn on the faucet a little bit…

RAIN, BABY, RAIN! 🌧️🍄🌧️

Friendly mushroom PSA: Never eat a wild mushroom unless you are 100% confident in its identification. When in doubt, admire it, photograph it, and leave that funky little forest friend right where you found it. 💚

🍄

08/20/2026

🦋🐛 Little Explorers + Monarchs = A VERY Good Saturday! 🐛🦋

Last Saturday, the Birchwood Butterfly Ranch had the absolute honor of sponsoring and presenting at the Little Explorers program "Caterpillars & Butterflies" at Hunt Hill Nature Center ...which basically meant we got to spend the morning with a whole crew of curious, enthusiastic, expert critter hunters in training. 💚🔎🌿

And these kiddos were GOOD!!!

We spent the morning learning all about monarch butterflies and their incredible life cycle, from a teeny-tiny egg to a hungry caterpillar, to a chrysalis, and finally...a beautiful adult butterfly! 🥚➡️🐛➡️💚➡️🦋

We even had a live monarch caterpillar AND chrysalis along for the adventure so our Little Explorers could see these amazing stages up close. Because let's face it...everything is cooler when you get to see the REAL THING. 🤩

Then it was time to put our new critter knowledge to work!

We headed outside for a caterpillar hunt, and even though we're getting late in the monarch season here in the Northwoods, one Little Explorer with some SERIOUS eagle eyes spotted a 5th instar monarch caterpillar! 🐛👀👏

Talk about a proud critter-hunting moment!

We also made our own Monarch Life Cycle Wheels, sent fluffy swamp milkweed seeds sailing into the breeze, and even learned the Butterfly Dance to help us remember the four stages of butterfly development.

Yes. There was dancing. 💃🦋
Yes. We acted out being eggs, larvae, pupae, and butterflies.
And yes...the adults may have learned a thing or two, too. 😂

But our favorite part of the entire morning was simply getting to meet these wonderful kids and their parents and grandparents. There is something pretty special about watching a child get excited about finding a caterpillar, holding a milkweed seed, or discovering that a chrysalis isn't actually a cocoon. 💚

Those little moments of curiosity matter. They are where future naturalists, conservationists, gardeners, critter lovers, and lifelong nature nerds begin. 🌎🌱🦋

A HUGE thank you to Hunt Hill Nature Center for creating programs like Little Explorers and making these wonderful opportunities available to families absolutely FREE. What an incredible gift to our community!

And thank you to all of our Little Explorers for letting the BBR tag along on your adventure. Keep asking questions. Keep looking under leaves. Keep getting excited about bugs. And NEVER lose those eagle eyes! 👀🐛💚

🦋

08/19/2026

🦋✨ YOUR FALL ESCAPE IS WAITING… ✨🦋

We’ve had some absolutely incredible guests at the Butterfly Bungalow lately, and we have to say… these are our kind of people. 💚

They’ve completely embraced what staying at the Bungalow is all about: a tiny home tucked away in nature, surrounded by quiet, solitude, adventure, and the kind of DARK skies and stars you almost forget exist. 🌌

They’ve spent peaceful mornings in the gazebo with a cup of coffee, watching our resident family of cranes stroll through the goldenrod. ☕️🌾

They’ve hiked the trails, hunted for monarch chrysalises, explored the field, and watched some of the last monarchs of summer begin their incredible journey south. 🦋

They’ve built campfires after dark, stared up at skies FULL of stars, and listened to barred owls calling through the woods and loons echoing in the distance. 🔥🦉✨

And most importantly?

They’ve unplugged.

No schedules. No crowds. No traffic. No endless scrolling. Just 40 acres of field, forest, trails, wildlife, fresh air…and time to slow down.

If you’re craving a digital detox…

💚 If you want a different kind of getaway with your partner…

📚 If your idea of luxury is peace, solitude, and an afternoon with a really good book…

🥾 If you’re up for a little adventure and want an entire field practically to yourself to explore…

🌌 Or if you simply want to sit beneath the stars and remember how wonderfully LOUD nature can be when everything else gets quiet…

The Butterfly Bungalow might just be your kind of place, too.

And August is a pretty wonderful time to experience it. The field is turning gold, monarch migration is beginning, the nights are getting a little longer, and our Migration Special is still going! 🦋🌾

🦋 MIGRATION SPECIAL: $175/NIGHT 🦋

Book directly through our website to secure this rate and find all the Bungalow details here:

https://birchwoodbutterflyranch.com/butterfly-bungalow/

Come get a little lost in the wild with us. 💚

08/14/2026

🦋✨ IT’S A GIRL! ✨🦋

We had a brand-new lady monarch emerge from her chrysalis at the BBR this week, and getting to send her off into the wild was pretty fun. 💚

This little lady has a bit of a rescue story. We originally found her as a tiny egg on milkweed that we had accidentally mowed down. Since it's tough to transplant an egg to a different milkweed plant 😬🌿, we brought the leaf with egg inside and raised her safely through all the incredible stages from teeny-tiny caterpillar ➡️ very hungry caterpillar ➡️ chrysalis ➡️ BUTTERFLY! 🐛✨🦋

After emerging, she spent quite a while hanging out on my hand, stretching and testing those beautiful new wings. Once she seemed ready for her first meal, I gave her the grand tour of our front entryway pollinator garden so she could choose her very first sip of nectar. 🌸🌼🌺

Apparently, nothing on the tour impressed her quite enough. 😂

She took off, headed straight toward our veggie garden and landed among my cut flowers, where she decided the zinnias were worthy of her first official monarch meal. Excellent choice, your majesty! 🌸🦋

And how do we know she’s a lady? If you look at the hindwings of a male monarch, you’ll see two distinct black dots, one on each wing. Females don't have them. 💃🦋

Now we can’t help but wonder where those brand-new wings will take her next. With monarch migration season in full swing, could this beautiful girl eventually be headed all the way to the mountains of central Mexico? 🇲🇽🦋

There’s something pretty incredible about holding a butterfly that started as an egg…and wondering if those delicate wings might soon carry her thousands of miles south.

Safe travels, little lady. 💚 We’re awfully glad your journey started here. 🦋✨

Birchwood Butterfly Ranch

08/31/2026

08/28/2026

08/28/2026

08/27/2026

08/26/2026

08/25/2026

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08/14/2026

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