nobody ever suspects the butterfly

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Friday, July 17, 2009
I have 1,000,001 things to do today before it gets hot, but I don't want to do any of them. The good news is that none of the items on my list are urgent on the level of, say, "vent the reactor core," but my life will be a lot easier if I just get up and do them. But all I want to do is sit here eating cold cherries and drinking diet coke. Wah. And so the summer hot weather whining begins!

astronomy report: something woke me up at about 4 this morning so I looked out the window and saw the waning crescent moon shining bright in a still dark but getting lighter sapphire sky. It was AMAZING, but I went back to sleep anyway.

Urban Wildlife Report: there are THREE raccoons in the plum/cherry tree outside my window. It's kind of freaky, but they're good little climbers. (they are also scary smart. Now I'm paranoid that they're writing on their raccoon blog that I'm a "good little typer, but would it kill her to comb her hair???" raccoons are very fastidious.)

swallowtail
I love the striped body on these butterflies.

I'm working on a post about some books I've read which I thought I'd have ready by now, but there's still one paragraph that makes me want to stab things so I suppose I need to fix it first, lest it start some summer stabbing epidemic. I would feel bad about that.

On the other hand, it gives me an opportunity to post some butterfly pictures! These were taken in the front yard.

swallowtail

I love that the swallowtails return every summer. Or, more accurately, that there are swallowtails here every summer. They have a lifespan of less than a month, so I know it's not like the same butterflies are wintering in hawaii and coming back here for the hot months. (just so you know I know! I'm all up to date with my vague recollections and google search bar typing, which isn't much help if you're wrong the same way a lot of other people are wrong. It happens! but I think I'm right this time.) (although some monarch butterflies DO migrate and live months rather than weeks, but it can take up to three generations to make the trip. I'm going to stop googling now.)



I think they're really beautiful, but they're also pretty dang creepy when you see them from the front or the side. You know how in the movies butterflies land on someone and it's magical and romantic? It gives me the gigantic creeping heebie jeebies! they have sticky feet and would gladly feast on your flesh if it was nectar. Nature, man. I do everything I can think of to encourage butterflies to return to my garden, though. I figure if there are enough flowers they will keep their creepy sticky alien insect feet to themselves.




I knew butterfly laughter would sound like this.
2 comments on "nobody ever suspects the butterfly"
  1. Oh, your photos are amazing. As usual.

    About raccoons: they are NOT fastidious, even though they like to wash their food before eating it. The ones which come up on my porch do that--with their nasty filthy paws! Leave the cat water dish all muddy, with plant debris floating in it. ARGH!

    I want to just be lazy, too, when it is hot and sunny. Why can't we just do that? Pretend we are on the beach in Spain, or something?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks about the photos, Patty!

    Hee hee. I know the raccoons being fastidious thing is largely overblown, but I would point out they're making a mess of YOUR stuff, not theirs, so they could still be tidy in their own way. I know the ones we have around here pitch a fit if things aren't just the way they left them. (heh. like no bricks in front of the entrance to their hidey hole!)

    As for lazy, let's just go to the beach in Spain! then we don't have to pretend.

    ReplyDelete

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