Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Natural High

The forecasted rain held off until after lunch today. Actually, it sprinkled rather than rained. We are still in a drought and need rain desperately. Darlene and I went to our second favorite pond and walked around to see what we could find. Almost as soon as we hit the trail, we spotted a butterfly flitting along the path in and out of the tall grasses. Sadly, the maximum life span of a butterfly ranges from about 4 days to 2 weeks. This means that the butterfly we saw last week is most likely dead. That's a bummer. Just as with people, females generally live longer than males. As it should be.

Here's another interesting fact... a butterfly drinks nectar through its tongue which resembles a straw. Wow! I'm impressed that I remember this stuff from science class. Which means I did NOT sleep through my senior year. And speaking of my senior year, this month marks 35 years since my high school graduation. Thank goodness I'm not a butterfly!


Our next find was a weed with an amazingly vibrant bloom. I'm no expert in the field of flowerology (yeah, I made that up) and I often have a difficult time distinguishing a weed from an flower. As I've said before, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.


2 comments:

Chere said...

Debra, I call this flower a May Pod. That bloom will turn into a green fruit. When I was a kid my brother and I would throw them at each other. They make a popping noise when they break. Some thing we would do at the lake with my Grandparents. The butterfly is great. I hate to think about there short life span. They spent most of their life a caterpillar. (sp?)

Roxanne Schwandt said...

That is the neatest looking weed-flower I've ever seen! So intriguing with that yellow and green thingy-ma-jig coming from the center. (Yeah, I make up words too...)