A Butterfly and a Strawberry Plant…

My cat’s favorite all-time-ever place is under the Butterfly Bush in my front yard.  He will lounge there in wait for a luscious butterfly to land in his paw range.  Then he will bat at it.  I don’t think he is very successful at making contact.  As far as I know, it is Butterfly, all: Beedle Ray Weedleman, 0…but that is just a guess.

Yesterday, I saw just about the most enormous butterfly ever.  I couldn’t believe my eyes.  I would have described it as the size of a saucer, but I am terrible at those kinds of spatial comparisons, and I also tend to exaggerate.  (I once compared the real Sphinx in Egypt to the size of a mini-van.  The Sphinx is actually bigger.)  So, when Butterfly came back today, I quickly and quietly got my phone to take a picture.  Stealthily, I crept out, stood very still, and captured the evidence.  Butterfly is about the size of a Carolina Chickadee, which is pretty darn big for a butterfly.

Then, I turned to come inside, and my eye caught my strawberry plant over in another flower bed.  It was the first flower bed I created in my yard four years ago.  At that time, I planted six strawberry vines, and my little dog, Hattie, dug up five of them.  I wrote about that strawberry metaphorically in my Christmas letter that year.  Then I promptly forgot about that plant.  Holy cow!  To my surprise, it was holding three ripe berries and a few developing ones, plus some flowers.  And there was new baby strawberry vine off to the side.  My, my, it was thriving.

Sometimes it is very good to NOTICE, to look at everyday things with fresh eyes.  Oh, and hey, LOOK is my year word.