Miracles of Life

There are many things in the natural world that are amazing and humbling, but for me the process of complete metamorphosis that insects like butterflies go through is one of the most awe-inspiring.  From a tiny, milky white egg barely visible to the human eye to a tiny caterpillar, then a large caterpillar then a jeweled orb and finally to a perfect butterfly.  This morning I sat out on our deck listening to the sounds of birds of tree frogs in the woods and watched the miraculous arrival of 5 perfect monarchs.  I chose this particular image because if you look closely at the right side of the chrysalis you can see the hard exterior "shell" starting to crack.  Only a few seconds later, legs became visible and within less than a minute, and entire wrinkled up butterfly was hanging before me.  I am going to put a couple of images in Extra showing the emergence.

A few short hours later, they were all ready to fly so Hubs and I sat outside, opened the container and let them decide when to fly out.  They went in memory of his mother and father, his brother Philip, and my bestie Kura's parents.  The first one out of the container was the one in memory of Virginia, my mother in law.  Not surprising at all since Virginia grabbed life with such gusto and fearlessness.  Three more poised to emerge in the next few days.

And of the 8 eggs I gathered last week in the garden, it looks like 7 of them are now itty-bitty caterpillars, barely visible to the eye.  They will feed on the milkweed they "hatched" on until they are a little bigger and then I will move them to fresh milkweed from my garden.  I had to cut back a bunch of my milkweed about a month ago because of spider mites and now I have a bunch of tender new leaves just waiting to be eaten.  This last group will be very well fed and I expect when I let them go in about a month, they will be strong and healthy and ready to travel.  

I've checked in with Peg a few times just to make sure she is doing okay.  I am certain there are very difficult moments as she settles back into the house she and Chris shared for all these years, but she is keeping herself busy.  And all of her friends and family are staying close, checking in often.  We are her Village.

My mom and dad are doing well and we've planned a FT chat tomorrow.  Dad's toe is finally getting better and he and mom have been out walking the past few days, something they've both really missed this last month.

As for me, I had a very long nap this afternoon after running a bunch of errands this morning.  Hubs got all the results of the scans as well as blood work - nothing alarming but nothing that explains the pain either.  Waiting for insurance to approve the MRI as that may tell the story.  We still both kind of think he may have torn some soft tissue.  

I've just spotted a flycatcher up high in our trees - it darts out after insects and then flies back into the trees.  Tis the season for migrants.

Dark with almonds today.

xo
Debbi