Where The Gold Bees Dream: raindrops

Friday, May 25, 2012

Finding the Beauty After the Rain

I must have flowers, always, and always.

~Claude Monet

Ah, the rain. I think it's rained everyday for three weeks straight. And there is still over six months to go before the tropical season is over. *sigh*

The last few days have been really bad...over seven inches where I live. Streets are flooded and it's just dark and gloomy all day long. And to add to the gloom, I've had a stomach bug for most of the week. But not all was a wash. The came out yesterday afternoon for a bit and I took the opportunity to hurry to the mailbox before the next deluge.
And I saw something.
Four large Black Swallowtail caterpillars munching away at a pot of parsley.

Parsley Munchers

I've never had Black Swallowtails before! I saw one flying around about two weeks ago, first time seeing one in my yard ever. I had checked the parsley and there were eggs on it and I was really excited that I finally attracted a new critter to the yard. I planted the parsley two years ago in a pot and it's now rooted itself into the ground. I don't harvest from this pot as it also has milkweed and passion-vine that have self-seeded there. I noticed that they've nearly eaten all of it so I had to give up my own pot of parsley that I do harvest from that is kept on my screened-in patio. Now, they will have enough to finish eating and go pupate somewhere and make more Black Swallowtail Butterflies! I can't wait to see them zooming around my yard and hopefully I'll be able to snap a pic of one of the butterflies.

Garden Greens

After the excitement of seeing the caterpillars I wondered what else was out so I took the camera and went around snapping pictures of the caterpillars and other wet things. The birds and ducks were preening their rain-soaked feathers and all the plants were dressed in glittering diamond raindrops. There is always a silver lining isn't there? The earth is really quite pretty after a rain.