True strength is delicate. ~ Louise Berliawsky Nevelson
Unidentified butterfly, South Fork of Cave Creek. May 15, 2019.
Note to self: stay strong
butterfly
Wordless Wednesday
Photo taken on hike to Square Top Lakes. August 28, 2019.
If you know what this is you’re smarter than me
Soon-to-be Spicebush Swallowtail Butterfly. Blakeslee, PA. August 18, 2019.
Everybody knows what a caterpillar is, and it doesn’t look anything like a butterfly.
~ Lynn Margulis
Me and Monet both
My wish is to stay always like this,
living quietly in a corner of nature.
~ Claude Monet
Friday Haiku
Skipper butterfly
darts quickly around flower
buffet of pollen.
Butterfly secrets?
Camouflage is a game we all like to play, but our secrets are as surely revealed by what we want to seem to be as by what we want to conceal. ~ Russell Lynes
Will we betray nature?
Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.
~ William Wordsworth
I just called my Democratic Senator and Representative in Washington, D.C. to tell their staffers I absolutely support Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey’s twin resolutions for a #GreenNewDeal. Neither staffer could tell me how my so-called representatives felt about this bold plan for stabilizing the climate via jobs and economic/social/environmental justice. We’re headed for a fiery, hot crash and many of the people in power don’t seem to care. I’m exhausted by their willful ignorance, but at the same time I believe we-the-people can and must rise up to protect our natural home. We cannot betray her.
I hope you’ll join me in fighting for the planet. Please call your Representatives and Senators today to urge them to support the Resolution for a Green New Deal.
Friday Haiku
Delicate yet fierce
battered, tattered survival
no one gets out whole
Friday Haiku
Last year’s invasion
Painted Ladies everywhere
wish they’d come again
Counting moments with a butterfly
The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.
~ Rabindranath Tagore
Friday Haiku
A good reminder
full lifetime packed in two weeks
live as if that’s all
Thankful Thursday: in which I court Painted Ladies
There’s no palette as rich as a garden.
And the intensity of it – I make this statement all the time:
You can’t plan nature; you court her.
~ Robert Irwin
Painted Lady invasion
Yesterday, as Zippy and I walked Emma around our neighborhood, we noted a larger-than-typical number of butterflies. We wondered if we were in a migration path. Sure enough, when we got home and looked in the backyard, we discovered this:
Rather than orange and black like the monarch butterfly, the Painted Lady is orange and brown. Migrations are also happening elsewhere. It was awe-inspiring to be in their lovely company as they soaked up the sun and flowery nutrition from the rabbit brush.
Another generous gift from Mother Earth.
Twofer Tuesday: Monarch Butterfly edition
When I was in Florida visiting my mother last October, we took many walks around her community. On one of those walks, I spotted the familiar orange-and-black-and-white markings of a Monarch Butterfly. It was completely intact but no longer of this world. I gently cupped it in one hand for the rest of the walk and, when back at my mom’s, carefully wrapped the body in a tissue and tucked it inside an empty medication bottle.
I forgot about my little treasure until today.
While we have lovely butterflies in Colorado (lots and lots of Swallowtails), I have never seen a Monarch here. I know they’re struggling as a species, and that hurts my heart. It’s strange to have lived a childhood filled with these beauties feeding on milkweed plants, and then exist without them.
I was very happy to find this one on our walk, even if was no longer in flight. Nothing else looks like a Monarch.
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