If My Heart Had Wings

Or no, wait, maybe it's . . . if my wings had HEARTS!  :-)

My husband hollered for me to come out and see the butterflies, and so I did. And there were indeed two monarchs swooping and diving around the milkweed. As I watched them and took pictures, I got the feeling that they were new to flight, and I wondered if they might be our own first brand-new homegrown monarchs! We have indeed spotted some really large caterpillars lately. And perhaps it was a pair of those, after the big change, showing off their stuff.

I did giggle to myself, thinking about how almost goofy and uncoordinated they looked. And I pondered: What would it be like if you were a great big caterpillar crawling around, who suddenly . . . grew WINGS???  Worms of wonder, baby. Worms of wonder! You crawl . . . and then suddenly . . . you FLY!!! (You may see one of our brand new monarchs, airing out its marvelous wings, in the extras.)

Earlier this week, we spotted a new plant in our yard. It is a thistle, and it has beautiful pinkish-purple blooms. As I was photographing the monarchs, a male black swallowtail showed up and drank heavily from a thistle bloom. I sat in a chair and was able to get some great shots. Do you see the hearts on its wings? And the spotted pajamas? What a fancy bug!!!

My soundtrack song includes the line, "All of us have wings, but some of us don't know why." It's INXS, with Never Tear Us Apart.