Beautiful Surprise.

I enjoy gardening. My husband enjoys photography. Every once in a while things truly do work out perfectly in this life. This morning I was out tending my garden by pulling weeds and training a rather unruly and rebellious rosebush. After an exchange of thorny scratches and colorful words, I caught sight of the most beautiful butterfly. Now this butterfly was no stranger to my backyard. With lots of lush greenery and a bubbling fountain, this butterfly had visited before. As a matter of fact my husband had been trying to capture it on camera for some time to no avail.

I lifted my eyes and slowly came up from my bent position and noticed that it was drinking the nectar from the milkweed vine which was now in bloom. Slowly and steadily I cupped my hands around it as gentle as I could and caught it! It squiggled and squirmed and I started to get a little scared as I wondered if it was going to bite me. I had already had harsh words with a Japanese beetle that morning after it had tried to dive bomb me as I hovered over its favorite rosebush. I tried to recall if butterflies even had the capability to bite as I "One armed" open the patio door and rushed up the stairs to show my husband. He was in the shower of all places! I closed the bathroom door behind me and told him I had a surprise for him....he gleefully whipped open the shower curtain with a devilish smile. With an equally devilish grin on my face I said "no, not that kind of surprise".

He wasn't disappointed for long when I opened my hand and the butterfly flew out and around the bathroom. "That's the one I've been trying to get" he said. So butt naked, he jumped out of the shower and ran down the hall to get his camera. He came back and closed the door behind him and began taking pictures of his prized beauty. I took a few of him holding the butterfly in his hand and it almost covered his palm, it was that big! He helped me get the butterfly back into my hand and he went back to his showering.

I took the bewildered and probably horrified butterfly back outside to the milkweed vine and placed it back on the flower where it had been drinking. As I walked away I could hear the faintest and tiniest of butterfly voices say "boy! what was in that stuff?"