Tonight Only! Big Lou and the Sparrow Quartet!

It was the Sunday afternoon before the big July 4th holiday, and my husband decided he wanted to run in to Giant to buy steaks and Diet Pepsi. Now, this may not be amazing news to YOU, but it is to me, for the man has been sick as a dog since Monday.

He came down with a pretty impressive case of what we think was viral gastroenteritis that laid him low for nearly a week. He lost 10 pounds and had no interest at all in food. (As he is the main cook in this house, the bad news is I survived on snack bars and frozen pizza for that week.)

Fortunately, his symptoms did not include vomiting, but I think he may have set a record of some kind by getting up to go to the bathroom 14 times in a single night. He could not be far from a restroom, so we went hardly anywhere. Only the places we HAD to go. Otherwise, we stayed home. To say he was grumpy would be a vast understatement.

So the fact that he was feeling better, and thinking of food, at long last, was a very good sign indeed. With steaks on special sale at Giant, he thought we could grab a pack or two so we could get grilling on Monday. And two-liter Diet Pepsis were 3 for $3, one offer per customer. And so we went into town, and he dropped me off at Tudek Park for a half-hour jaunt around the grounds while he shopped.

I walked around the butterfly garden in the heat of the day and was somewhat put out not to see a single butterfly there. The flowers are blooming, the sky is blue, the sun is out, it's toasty. WHERE ARE THE BUTTERFLIES? I thought to myself.

But as I walked away from the butterfly garden area, an orange butterfly  (see extra photos) flew around me aggressively, and landed at my feet. As if I were not understanding its message enough, it did it again. Flit flit, around my head, and landed at my feet: "I'll be your butterfly today!" it seemed to say.

I initially thought it was a great spangled fritillary, as that's the type of butterfly I am used to seeing wearing those colors. But I got home and looked it up, and my best guess is that it is a tawny emperor, Asterocampa clyton.  (Also: Hello, big sister Barb in Heaven!)

It is often confused with the hackberry emperor, Asterocampa celtis. And I giggled to think if it HAD been a hackberry, the butterfly could have been saying: "I'll be your hackberry/[huckleberry]," one of our favorite Doc Holliday (Val Kilmer) lines from the awesome western flick, Tombstone. But I digress.

Then I hot-footed it over to the community gardens for a quick look around, to visit the barn and the horses and my white oak tree. The tree was in fine form, as glorious and beautiful as ever, but the horses were absent, no idea where they went for the day. The gardens are lush now in high summer.

As I rounded a corner, I noticed some birds sitting on a fence/wire. As I watched, the birds moved around. Now five birds, now three. Now two facing that way, now one. And then one would fly away and two more would arrive.

I thought the one on the left looked like the lead singer of a doo-wop group maybe, or a drill sergeant in the army: "Sound off like you've got a pair!" A friend says that they are house sparrows, with the one on the left being a male and the four on the right being female. So here we are: tonight only! Big Lou and the Sparrow Quartet, take it away!!!!

I have two pictures, so let's have two soundtrack songs. First, I wanted the Statler Brothers for my first song, Do You Know You Are My Sunshine, as it seemed the sort of song these birds might sing. For my second photo - of the orange butterfly - I wanted a tune with the words "for you" in it. So Here's a waifish 1971 Olivia Newton-John covering a Bob Dylan classic, If Not For You.

Also of note: my Instagram got hacked again. Changed passwords twice, on both Instagram and Facebook. Am wishing there were a button to push to "stick pins and needles into the effigy of your hacker." Hmmph!