During January, February, and the first week of March of last winter, I was surrounded by lovely people, tropical hummingbirds, butterflies, bright flowers, and the Caribbean Sea. A few days ago, when snow was falling all around Flower Hill Farm Retreat, I was not longing for the beauty and warmth of Treasure Beach, Jamaica. Being home is inspiring. The beauty of snow fog adds a mystical and mysterious element to being out in the gardens and landscape. The leafless trees and shrubs are like … [Read more...] about There Is No Place Like Home for the Winter
Winter Blues ~ Eastern-tailed Blue, Summer Azure and Silvery Blue
Dreaming of Blues fluttering around the garden can shake off the mantle-of-melancholy winter sometimes weaves about our spirits. Today, I gather some delightful, inspiring and tender butterfly encounters, from this past sizzling summer, and toss them on this page of white, that they may bring a ray of light, to warm the inner gardeners folded inside our longing souls. Eastern Tailed-Blue Butterflies of 2013The progeny of these gossamer-wings are now chrysalises, or caterpillars in the Eastern … [Read more...] about Winter Blues ~ Eastern-tailed Blue, Summer Azure and Silvery Blue
A Winter Focus ~ Cedar Waxwing Ornaments and Long Nights Moon
The nakedness of winter's landscape can sometimes seem cold and lonely, when suddenly, whoosh, all together in flight, a flash of fluttering life lifts the spirit high towards outermost tips of a beloved Black Cherry tree. Offering light and enchantment to the lucky viewer, a flock, an 'ear-full', a 'museum' of over sixty Cedar Waxwings alight, sprinkled along the top of the skeletal cherry canopy, resembling delicate ornaments bedecking leafless limbs. A closer focus reveals hints of … [Read more...] about A Winter Focus ~ Cedar Waxwing Ornaments and Long Nights Moon
Flower Hill Farm Butterflies of 2012 ~ American Copper
The teeny tiny American Copper (Lycaena phlaeas) packs a sizable palette for one so small. I was happy to find this little butterfly sunning in the south field back in May of 2012. Its wingspan is only 7/8 x 1 1/8 . . . a delicate, miniature, ephemeral painting belonging to the Gossamer-wings family . . . offering distinctive marks and textures that one can identify but never own. However, photos and happy memories are filed, of a late may day, walking in the south field along side a fragile, … [Read more...] about Flower Hill Farm Butterflies of 2012 ~ American Copper
Flower Hill Farm Butterflies of 2012 ~ American Copper
The teeny tiny American Copper (Lycaena phlaeas) packs a sizable palette for one so small. I was happy to find this little butterfly sunning in the south field back in May of 2012. Its wingspan is only 7/8 x 1 1/8 . . . a delicate, miniature, ephemeral painting belonging to the Gossamer-wings family . . . offering distinctive marks and textures that one can identify but never own. However, photos and happy memories are filed, of a late may day, walking in the south field along side a … [Read more...] about Flower Hill Farm Butterflies of 2012 ~ American Copper
