Every Process and Every Journey is Relative

       We have been sad and slow to post because nature, as we knew it would but dreaded it nonetheless, in its myriad ways prevented every caterpillar and chrysalis from the latest Monarch brood, including all The Amigos, from progressing to a butterfly. 
         Then the marvelous Margaret Renkl, whom we adore, wrote this week in a New York Times opinion column that just up the road in Nashville, she had seen only six butterflies of any variety all summer. Yet, she still found the beauty and the joy in what God did give her in her garden. It's just rarely what one expects it to be. 
          So let us count the blessings we have recently enjoyed. 
          1) We hatched another beautiful Black Tiger Swallowtail female. 

          2) We watch a pair of Silvery Checkerspots prepare to lay another hundred eggs, the issue of which we will happily watch devour our remaining coneflowers. 

          3) A beautiful female Monarch did visit, although all we saw her do was feed. 

         4) A Red-Spotted Purple supped with a Ruby Throated Hummingbird on the lavender Butterfly Bush. 

          5) And in the greatest surprise of all, amid the Milkweed, suffering terribly from an assault of aphids and a lack of ladybugs, this week a pair of third-instar Monarch caterpillars were found by eagle-eyed Katie. These we have taken in on a potted Milkweed to the porch. Meet Bruno and Mr. Bean (who keeps falling off!?)

               Keep looking. There is always something there to celebrate. Always a new joy beginning. And beauty is always around us for the finding.