Life and Loss

The black swallowtail chysalises we overwintered are completing their metamorphosis and we are so filled with wonder at this life cycle. The chrysalis over winter was whitish/brown...

and turned black on the day of emergence. It's time!

After a couple of hours a crumpled, wet butterfly emerged and struggled to find a good place to dry its wings in our little box so I offered my finger as a mode of transportation to a better location. The feeling of those little feet grasping my finger always excites me - what beauty and fragility and wonder all wrapped up into this one beautiful being! I moved the butterfly to a common milkweed where it hung and dried and later flew off to continue its lifecycle. Life. Beautiful, precious, wondrous life.

And with life, also comes death....this time to our chicken girls. We will remember them in moments like these:

Preening and relishing the sunshine:

Pecking around on the porch asking for us to come hang out:

Begging for treats:

Watching everything and loving life:

Thank you girls for your gifts of laughter and love, bringing us so easily into the present moment and for your beautiful, sometimes giant, sometimes wonky eggs.  You are missed.

Barbara Kinsolver said in her fabulous book Prodigal Summer: "Solitude is a human presumption. Every quiet step is thunder to beetle life underfoot, a tug of impalpable thread on the web pulling mate to mate and predator to prey, a beginning or an end. Every choice is a world made new for the chosen." 

This time, the chosen was a hungry raccoon whom we hope your lives benefited as much as your presence in our lives benefited us.