Desmia funeralis, Grape Leaffolder.
Mmm, what a natty jet airplane of a moth! Perched on Nancy Love's gravestone at my little Methodist cemetery. I could not have told you what it was without David Beadle and Seabrooke Leckie's new moth guide, which makes me whoop with joy. What a book!! I'm getting it signed at the New River Birding and Nature Festival, where Seabrooke will be speaking and showing us all the fabulous moths. Giving them names, for once. O joy! I get to meet her and get my book signed! See, writers get just as geeked out as everybody else. (Postscript: She was Wonderful. Marvelous. Self-effacing but quietly confident, brave and magical, too).
Scattered, scattered, I am. On her way to the New River festival, Murr Brewster came over for a day and a half and a lovely night too and we emptied my greenhouse. Two women could not have had more fun, than messing about with pots and soil and deciding which geranium looked nice with which nemesia. I love that woman!! We decided she really just needs to live here. Think how much we'd get done. Or not. Yakkity yak yak yak.
The second we put them out, the "Graffiti Red" stellar geraniums were visited by swallowtails and this lovely male hummingbird, who had been flying into the greenhouse every day to say hello to the flowers. It made me smile as wide as Montana to be in the Garden Pod when he flew in, because he sounded like a gargantuan wasp from a Japanese horror movie in there.
Birds are flooding in. Oh my gosh. How can I do everything I have to do to get ready for the festival?? To keep my precious plants and bulbs from dying while I'm away this spring? There's an indigo bunting in the orchard, and they're flying over in twos and threes, zapping...
And there are sweet kids to be fed and run to the waiting bus...not for much longer! They get out May 23!!
but there's a faded scarlet tanager rasping away in the orchard, too...
and the woods is full of wood thrushes, and how can you do everything that needs to be done when you are melting away?
Twee-o. Tweedleay. bup bup bup twardle tee? Twowdly-oh Tee? Twee-o.
And the leaves drip and the song twines around my heart and squeezes it up into my throat.
11 comments:
Thanks for another wonderful blog and especially for telling us about the new moth ID.
Hopefully it will soon be on Kindle and I can have it.
Here in the Oregon High Dessert, spring has come the slowest, I've ever seen it. But, in spite of the intermittent freezing weather, the birds are pouring in to breed or passing through to their more northerly breeding grounds.
No, I'm thinking if you & Murr lived nearby each other--you would get lots done, but not necessarily work.
I'm transported by your joy.
I think you & Murr were separated at birth... she got the funny gene and you got the science chimp gene.
May 23rd? Not fair! June 8 here!
A wood thrush's song is what Heaven sounds like. It breaks your heart in a good way. :-) Thanks for the word about the new moth ID book. Cheers.
You had us all at Twee-o
Thank you, Julie, for putting heart thoughts into words.
Miss Weezie in Texas
Love the Wood Thrush mnemonic! Brings back memories of "Up North" in the springtime. Down here in Florida we see Thrushes during migration but they're largely silent, no Twee-o Tweedleay!
I so know this feeling. Way too much extravagance at one time. Impossible as it is to describe, you captured it. Why does it always come when you are least able to slow down to give it your full attention? Oh, that hummingbird photo. And the indigo bunting. Indigo bunting! Oh!
I'm late to the party. Spotty internet and too many live wonders to attend to. YES! Thank you for scoring and reporting on a swallowtail in "our" pot! You are a blessing, as is everything you love.
Ah, thank you, Julie! It means so much to have you say that.
Hope you're finding some time to relax amongst your busy schedule!
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