Butterflies & Blueberries, Inc. represents the next evolutionary step for Bill Howatt and Laurel Brown. The idea for the corporation was inspired by and conceived in Aruba on vacation. There, they had the opportunity to visit a butterfly farm and fell in love with the idea of not only breeding and raising live butterflies but also growing the plants that attract them.

Bill and Laurel met in High School in a suburb of Worcester, MA in the early 70’s and worked together at the local hospital kitchen through high school. "We had a lot of friends in common. Bill was a great guy and a lot of fun to be with but definitely a wild spirit", says Laurel. They each went their own ways after graduating, Bill, to University of Idaho and Laurel to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Over the next 20 years, Laurel earned her degree in BS in Marketing and Management, got married, had two children and divorced in 1990. She found a wonderful small town community in NH and they moved to Milford where she raised the children as a single parent. "It was a tough time for all of us, we didn’t know a single person. However, it did not take long for the kids to get involved in sports and school activities. The community embraced us, the schools were top notch and we were very happy in Milford", she said.

Bill fell in love with Idaho remaining there for a few years after getting his degree in Forestry. But he also knew his father had always dreamed of farming the 140-acre farm where Bill grew up so Bill returned to Massachusetts to help his father achieve his dream. They developed the plan that gave birth to Spring Ledge Tree Farm. Over the next 18 years, Bill and his Dad cleared over 17 acres of forest, planted, nurtured, and sold thousands of Christmas trees. "When I first started I didn’t even have a chain-saw." he said, shaking his head, "I started clearing the land with an ax: Paul Bunyan style!" He chose to live a very simple life in a small house on a pond in a neighboring town and managed to maintain his cherished "bachelor status".

In 1995, through friends of friends, Bill was invited to a surprise birthday bash for Laurel. Although he could not attend, Bill called Laurel that day and asked her out to dinner. She was very busy with her children and their activities, but Bill persisted, and they agreed to meet. (It had been 23 years since they had last seen each other.) They did "car-pool duty" to soccer practice on their way to dinner and then had to leave their meals in the middle of dinner to pick up the kids, returning to the restaurant an hour later to finish their dinner! "It was my first introduction to life with children" and it never slowed down after that." Bill laughs, "I asked her to work with me on the tree farm that fall and to help me sell the trees at Christmas. I quickly fell in love with Laurel and her children."

Planting and maintaining thousands of Christmas trees year after year was beginning to take a toll on Bill physically and he began looking for his next "farming" opportunity. After the Aruba vacation in January 2000, Bill came back excited to "farm" butterflies and their plants. Although excited about the butterflies, Laurel had her own dream of planting fields of blueberries on the farm for a "pick-your-own" operation that would help to support them throughout the coming years. They agreed to do both and came up with the name for the corporation, Butterflies & Blueberries, Inc.

Looking for direction and inspiration for his new venture, Bill reflected back to the various enterprises he had embarked upon during the years of tree farming and found a product he had developed 15 years previously. "After a few modifications, I developed Bill’s Butterfly Nursery, which in turn, inspired all the other educational butterfly raising products we have to offer," he explained. Bill started breeding beautiful Painted Lady butterflies so that he would be able to supply the entire line of butterfly raising kits with larvae. "We have had a tremendous amount of positive feedback from parents, children, teachers and students, alike, from all over the country."

Butterflies & Blueberries, Inc. soon began to offer beautiful live Painted Lady & Monarch butterflies for release at weddings, memorial services, fundraisers, graduations, and other life celebrations across the continental United States.

In July 2001, Bill & Laurel moved back to Bill’s home in Rutland, MA. "The kids were grown. We were ready for the move back to Bill’s house on the pond in Massachusetts and Bill and I were excited to be back in the area where we grew up", says Laurel. On a beautiful, warm, autumn day in October 2002 they were married on Demond Pond. "Of course, we had to release beautiful Painted Lady & Monarch butterflies to celebrate", Bill smiled. "Everyone expected it!"