Gift of the Day

Mountain ash berries are getting ripe

How could I not be grateful for a life that lets me work outdoors? Bringing in laundry yesterday just before a storm..... These humid summer days, seems like nothing wants to dry.....

I had just put out some grungy old oranges to see if the orioles wanted a free lunch when it showed up....A huge butterfly flip-flopping round the yard, fluttering more like a bat or a lame-winged bird than a butterfly.

It was so big, seeming almost too heavy to fly...and so beautiful it gave me cold chills to watch it flapping by.

It would not sit still, and although it flew around me for at least ten minutes while I fed chickens and pea fowl and puttered at my other jobs, the minute I went inside to get the camera it made itself scarce.

However, I vaguely remembered seeing one, once before...just once...up on the top garden. I looked it up when I came in later and, sure enough, it was a giant swallowtail (the name sure fits.)

It flew right around me, so close it almost touched me. I think it came to visit me when I was cutting oranges because the larvae feed on citrus leaves. I was covered with orange juice and probably smelled delightful from the butterfly point of view. Here in the north my stale oranges are probably about as close as it is going to get to anything even remotely citrus.

Lucky me to share the yard with it for a while.