Oh Noooooooooo!!!
Brokenhearted.
I was reading Dave's article tonight about Milkweed and had read Catmint's article about butterfly gardens so here it was in the middle of the night and I was in a butterfly mood. There have been several -- well, probably not several but more than I've seen in a while -- tiger swallowtails flittering and fluttering around the few blooms I still have, some even dancing around my goldenrod. So beautiful, all that yellow. And one of them played around near me long enough for me to see the little blue markings on it. You can't always see those little blue dots, they are so small, but this one was so close I could very well see the sheen of diamond dust that sprinkled it. Just really beautiful.
I named it Tigger, called it Tigger Blue Tail the whole afternoon, and hoped it would grace my hand or even my nose and stop to visit for awhile. He never did but he sure came close! Mostly he fluttered around Sunshine, my great rescue dog, and i think it was her nose he was trying to land on. The butterflies were here almost daily for most of last week.
Tonight I was thinking of Tigger Blue Tail as I read the two articles. Then as I do sometimes when sleep comes slowly, I started wandering around in the forums and knowing Robin moderated this one, I thought maybe there would be more talk of butterflies here, which is how I came to this thread.
I had to laugh when I read of Kyla's 'Killer the Avenger', how great it is to know that there are others who name beautiful living things like butterflies, must be a kinship that comes with living in adjoining states
Or maybe that trait just comes with colorful imaginations.
So I started following Killer, could hardly wait to see her great entry into the world, thinking maybe Killer would fly westward so I could meet her. And I followed through Janet's 'bug' ID and on to Killer's winter home in the protective evergreen gardenia. I was cheering her on, looking forward to pictures, you know how it is. So I followed her every step of the way from beginning all the way to . . . oh sigh . . . the end.
When I was growing up in the mountains of SE Kentucky, I had a Bug Cemetery. Yes, I did. It began with June Bugs, you know, those bright green nearly iridescent flying critters that rotten boys in my first grade class tied strings to one of their legs then twirled it around for awhile. Soon they'd tire of the game and the June bug would fly away until the string tangled in a tree branch and he either lost his leg or died trying to get away from the string. I thought that was incredibly cruel so I'd climb the tree if I could or find a taller girl who might be able to save him by cutting the string. Mostly they died by then, so I'd save them in my pocket till I got home.
Dad always had empty matchboxes laying around and I kept all that I could find, saved them in my room just for the little dead critters that I found as I wandered those mountains but especially for those butterflies that had danced above Mom's flower garden and somehow met their demise there. Mom tried to make a lady of me with dozens of ribbons in all colors for my hair and I would snip off the end of one of those ribbons to wrap the little dead critter in. I particularly loved the color blue, so the blue ribbons became much shorter as my graveyard grew. He would then be placed in the tiny matchbox and just to the side of my playhouse beside the old cedar tree, I buried him near his other deceased friends. Then of course, he'd have a pebble for his headstone and another smaller one for the foot stone. If I hadn't named him already, then I would name him when I buried him. Then I'd say a proper little prayer and thank him for being my friend. Of course his name was written in crayon on the sliding cover of the match box, too. Just in case his friends came looking, they could find him. There were too many names for me to remember now, but Jimbug comes to mind as well as PrettyPat and TinyTwo, GreenGoldy was a stink bug and there was Josephine the Grasshopper. Others I just can't remember. Sometimes for butterflies I had to find bigger boxes but usually my grandmother would have one she was saving just for me. She's the only one I ever let in on my secret cemetery because after all, it was sacred ground and I didn't want anybody to dig it up. My grandmother told me that cemeteries were on sacred ground and I thought that was such a good word, I used it for my cemetery too.
So Kyla, I mourn with you. It would have been such fun to welcome Killer the Avenger into your world.
OH . . . . . SlimySlug got a burial plot too along with WiggleWorm and KittyCaterpillar. KittyCat had to have a bigger box to fit her name.
Thanks for the memories, even at the expense of Killer the Avenger.
and you've had a wonderful range of butterflies this year, Kyla!
