OMENA, Michigan — On a recent sunny afternoon, Andrew Bowman was gleeful to see monarch butterflies flutter across patches of milkweed.
Bowman, the new leader of the conservation group Defenders of Wildlife, celebrates every single monarch that appears on his farm here in Michigan’s Leelanau Peninsula, he said as he wound through paths carved among the native plants he’s cultivated across the property since buying the farm with his now-wife in 2020.
The idyllic 10-acre Cherry Basket Farm — north of Traverse City in the pinkie finger of the mitten-shaped state — is a popular wedding venue and event space. It’s studded with historic lofty white barns and flanks another picturesque farm packed with iconic Michigan cherry trees. Bowman and his wife live in a white farmhouse between barns in the center of the property. It’s not insulated, so they escape during the winters that can be brutal in this corner of the world.
Bowman, 56, and his wife, Alena Bowman, got married there themselves in 2020. They bought the farm earlier that year after touring it with a real estate agent on FaceTime at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Since then, they’ve been working to stock the property with native shrubs and trees and ensure there’s plenty of milkweed for the monarchs.
