Butterfly Bowl

My cousin Julena keeps the most delightful garden. I view her patch of earth as her special escape, her time-catcher, her constant project, her love, and her art. Seeing how her lush Eden has grown and what unique container she has found to house her newest plants cheers my spirit. I love how she'll offer me tea with a freshly snipped sprig of mint, or steamy soup with herbs from her own backyard.

For my birthday, she and her family, Jillian, Tim, and Joshua gave me smartly chosen, specific pieces of her garden clustered nicely in one glazed red pot; what she affectionately called my butterfly bowl.


Inspired by this gift, I watered it and watched it and willed it to grow. I will not kill my plants, I will not kill my plants. I can do this! The parsley and lavender seemed to thrive, but the once flourishing sweet alyssum (pictured below), seemed to be dying. I kept at it. It'll come back; it's okay.


Then one morning before work, I rushed out to water my small garden in my backyard, and I saw the reason that my sweet alyssum was disappearing. A plethora of little green caterpillars wriggled and munched all over the dwindling sweet alyssum. Previously so small, I wasn't even able to see them. I could only see the evidence that they existed because they were eating up my plant! I wasn't very productive that day at work because I was so distracted and eager to go back to my caterpillars!

Gradually, the number of caterpillars lessened because some were eaten by birds and wasps, and others couldn't survive since the butterfly bowl didn't have enough sweet alyssum for them all to share. These particular caterpillars weren't interested in any other plant in the bowl which there was plenty of - those picky eaters!

I bought more sweet alyssum for them. I planted it (quite poorly) in a different pot and placed it strategically right next to the butterfly bowl, but they didn't crawl over.

The chunkiest of all the caterpillars began to climb the tall, leafy plant in the center of the butterfly bowl. This critter innately knew it was time for a change. Half way up the stalk, she slowed down and found a spot to rest. Of all of those busy, hungry caterpillars, only one made it to this point. This little survivor shed her skin one final time to build her cocoon.

I unfortunately missed the exit of the single butterfly from the bowl, but I'm sure it was lovely. Thank you, family, for this beautiful gift!

This picture isn't the butterfly that matches this cocoon, but I had to include a photo of one!

"Happiness is a butterfly which, when pursued is always beyond our grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."

~Nathaniel Hawthorne

My sweet alyssum and me are sitting quietly.

Happy,

Dawn

Being in Oregon

Grants Pass, Oregon
October 9-12, 2008

My "Gramma" and "Grampa" Dockery live in a lovely home nestled in a wood by a river in southern Oregon. Their living space is on the second story of this dark-wooded home.


When Gayle and I were little, all of our cousins went to Oregon and had a special get-away with our grandparents all to themselves, but we never went... until now. Gayle, Nathan and I took at trip to visit our Gramma and Grampa Dockery, Nathan's great-grandparents.


What an adventure we had - missing two of four flights, we spent a lot of time in the San Francisco airport! But I won't dwell on that mess - maybe in another blog.

It was Nathan's first airplane trip, and he was a great plane passenger! But, based off first-hand experience, that was only because he wasn't strapped in. No, on the airplane, his mother and I held him, played with him, fed him, rocked him, and entertained him. I have to say that he really doesn't like to be strapped in and that was evident with the screaming - blood-curdling screaming - in the car on the way to and from the Phoenix airport. But that aside, he was a most excellent little traveler, and aside from some of the traveling, our trip was awesome. We did always get to where we were headed safely, so we can't really complain about that either.


Our grandparents are travelers themselves – more frequent ones that Gayle or me – and they have spent a lot of time within the last 30 years traveling across the country in their fifth wheel to visit their friends and family, which happily, allowed us to see them more than we would have otherwise. But usually when they come to see us in Tucson, especially as Gayle and I have gotten older, we would get so busy and often consumed with work, school, family, and activities that we didn't really get to just really be with our grandparents.

At their home though, there weren't any distractions and we were able to just be. Being in Oregon was so nice. Every waking moment was with them. It was wonderful, and a pleasure to give my Gramma that dream come true, especially since we toted along her sweet great-grand baby!


Molly, my grandparents' puppy, the great tissue-stealer, all of four pounds of her, loved Nathan to pieces! She could not taste him enough! They were quite the pair.

During our stay, we made our traditional Mickey Mouse pancakes, took a scenic drive, had a picnic in the park near my Gramma's favorite autumn tree, played cards, went to Abby's – a favorite pizza joint, visited with our Great Aunt Norma and third cousin, Linda, watched 3 Christmas movies since my Gramma is the ultimate Christmas movie fan (The Holiday, The Christmas Card, and One Special Night), ate ice cream with Oreos, went for a hike, and caught up on Gramma's scrapbook. I had fun taking some pictures of the nature in the forest around their house, seeing deer, wild turkeys, and the fall colors just beginning. The colors are probably showing their true autumn glory about now rather than the days we were there. We were two weeks too early!

On our last evening there, after our movie marathon, I went to the guest room but Nathan and Gayle were already curled up together in slumber right in the center of the bed, so I bunked on the couch in the living room that last night there. Thankfully, it’s easy for me to sleep anywhere. And actually, it was one of the best things that happened because the next morning around 5:00am, Gramma came out to sit in her chair so she wouldn’t miss us when we woke up. I heard her but didn't want to say anything until she sat down so she wouldn't fall as she made her way through the room in the dark. Suddenly, I felt her feeling my head and shoulder for something. "Hi, Gramma," I said just as she swiped the blanket off me in the dark. We got a good laugh about that and then we visited for the last few hours we had together. Gayle heard us chatting and joined us while her baby still slept. Through the large picture windows, we could tell the sun was slowly creeping up because we could see the outline of tall pine trees and they felt like a canopy as they hugged the house. There was the most magical feeling of being high in a tree house.


Of course our time together scooted by too fast, but it was a special, memorable trip and I'm happy that we made it up to Oregon on our own to show our grandparents how important they are to us. I hope they know.

Thankful,
Dawn