Butterflies
Greetings to all.
This fall we have an unusual hatch of American Painted Lady butterflies. The past three weeks you see them everywhere across the city. Dozens of them flutter in and out of our gardens all day long.
I have not seen this many of this butterfly since the late seventies. Then we had a super hatch and hundreds filled yards all over the city. Not as thick this year, but still memorable.
Xavier and I played hide and seek this afternoon when I came home. I expected him to be napping (something now more rare than a large hatch of butterflies) as he woke up at 4:30 this morning. Instead of napping, we played hide and seek. After some time, we stopped to watch the twenty to thirty butterflies busy about one of the gardens.
Rebecca, for my first Father's Day (Xavier was still in the NICU), bought me two butterfly nets, a larger one for Daddy and a smaller one for Xavier (when he got older). I used to collect bugs as a child, and I had once told Rebecca of my hopes that one day I could collect bugs with my son. That inspired the idea for the gift.
Today, the gift given four and a half years ago—which had been hanging on a garage wall all this time—got taken off the hook.
Xavier and I spent a good thirty minutes catching butterflies and then letting them go. I showed Xavier how to be gentle with the net, and explained how delicate butterflies can be.
When he caught his first one, he smiled with delight. "I caught one!"
I showed him how to lift the net to let the butterfly have some room. We watched it flutter about, then we opened the net to let it go. Xavier ran all around the garden and porch area catching and releasing these creatures.
The number of butterflies diminished as the sun began to set. They sought to stay in the warmth of the sunlight. As the shade spread over our garden hunting area, we caught fewer and fewer. Now, the nets rest once more on their hooks in the garage, but tomorrow is another day!