Butterflies are Free

Lately, when I go out to walk, or work with my flowers, butterflies surround me.  Usually Monarchs.  Maybe they are lost souls, or maybe they are thankful I tried to save one of their own.  Who knows. 

I really love them, and I'm glad butterflies are free.


All images public domain.

As the Green Hills Roll Along

The days may be near 90, but in the shade, the air is much cooler than it was.   Fall is near.  Cattails fill ditches along with Queen Anne's Lace; the sumac is turning colors.  Leaves are even beginning to fall and school has started.  I dread winter, but I love fall, and Halloween, of course.

The hills are still green, and the corn high.  There is no landscape like this, with weathered red barns here and there, and houses way to worn to be standing by themselves, but do.

I want to walk and walk through it all, to remember days with my family, now gone, when we went driving along the country back roads, looking for antique stores, or old barns holding sales, for tomatoes and sweet corn, and later, hickory nuts, taffy apples, and pumpkins.

No one buys me taffy apples any more.  Driving my Dad's car, I realize how much he loved taking to the road.  I do, too.  Long drives are when I can play audio books; I'm listening to The Hobbit, which I've read over and over.  It takes me back not just to Middle Earth, but to Saturday mornings when my folks would go out, and I would get up and dust the living room, and every other weekend, one of the other rooms of the house as well. I read, played Barry Manilow albums over and over, especially I Write the Songs, daydreamed about boys I kind of  liked, but would never approach, did my drivers' ed homework, and waited for my folks to get back so I could go to lunch with them and shop.  Life was pretty easy, and good. It included free meals out, my mom buying and washing my clothes, free books, antique shows, and vacations, sometimes twice a year.

It's different now. 

Memories sustain me, and flowers, and a whiff of pumpkin spice now and then.