A Butterfly in March

-

 A Butterfly in March


On Mosquito Hill hiking trails today, we saw a pair of deer, sandhill cranes, and a snake.

But the big surprise was a butterfly, and a most unusual one, a Mourning Cloak.

It appears so early as an adult, because it’s a butterfly that hibernates!

It finds a winter shelter in a narrow slit in a tree, sleeps through the frigid months

protected by the glycol in its system, and emerges ready to give life to another generation.

And it’s a beautiful butterfly to boot, wings a rusty brown with a border of yellow, dotted with blue.

To the one who named it Mourning Cloak, its colors conjured up a garment of mourning. 

To us it was different, a harbinger of a beautiful Wisconsin spring.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Memories of Nepal

-
  Memories of Nepal At the monkey temple, one tried to steal a lady’s purse, but she battled back. On the bus safari, a mother rhino and her big baby approached us within a few feet, but ignored us and continued grazing. We saw other rhinos in the lowland valley of southern Nepal. On our dugout canoe trip, we passed a number of crocodiles along the riverbank. The guide assured us - somewhat - that they had already eaten. Peacocks and monkeys were seen along the shore. At the Chitwan National Park elephant rearing station, we saw mother elephants and their offspring. The bulls roam the wilds of the Park. and are brought in annually to mate. One baby elephant approached us at the fence. We gave the baby a drink of water. We passed a large cargo hauler - an elephant - on the narrow dirt road. Besides elephants, another beast of burden is the water buffalo. We saw a number of them submerged up to their horned heads in a farm pond, staring at us as we stared at them, We were bussed to a...
Read more

My Destiny

-
  My Destiny I’m writing my destiny now. Each man is an island if he chooses to be. I’m understanding my destiny now. No man is an island if he chooses to connect. I’m loving my destiny now. No man is an island if he leads with his heart. I’m expanding my destiny now. No man is an island if he ventures beyond himself. I’m sharing my destiny now. I’m bridging one island to another by sharing my truth from an unguarded heart. I’m living my destiny moment to moment now. My heart is hearing what yours has to say. I’m living my destiny now. My destiny is now, living each moment with an open heart.
Read more

The Yellowstone Trip

-
  The Yellowstone Trip Back in August of 2010, Patti and I took a trip with Amy and Aaron to a number of national parks and other memorable places on the way to Yellowstone and Grand Teton. These included the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial, Black Hills, Wind Cave, and Medicine Wheel National Historic Site.  The Badlands are well-named. They are other-worldly bad. Over-the-top bad. But beautiful as well in their own stark and sere way. We took them in, and drove on down the road.  Next stop, Mount Rushmore, the iconic faces of Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Lincoln peering down from their mountain home. Per the brochure, it took six years to carve the faces in the cliff, six years spread over the fourteen years it took to raise the million dollars for the project. The faces are up to six stories high from chin to crown. Taking a road off to the side of the mountain, we caught a different camera angle, the side of Washington’s face. We had a bri...
Read more