A small little life …

Being chronically ill and housebound, I most certainly lead a small little life. But that’s not to say it’s boring or uneventful. I am always amazed by the adventures that come to my front door. The Universe has a way or showing her grandeur even when your foot print on the landscape is infinitesimally small.

I try to walk the grounds at least once a day, because I love our little plot and the abundance of trees and the sound of the waterways in the koi pond. I went ahead of my husband yesterday who was busy in a virtual world, but took the dog pack with me. I chose a spot in the back 40, sitting on a railroad tie in the sun near a short trellis with grape vines defining their way in their first season with us.

There was a slight breeze in the air, and I realized it was one of the more pleasant mornings from the hot days of summer as we move into the warm season of fall in Southern California. I was moving my silk shall around like wings, not because I was enthralled in the moment, but to try and deter the mosquitoes which were aggressive this year due to the unprecedented rain. Which was good news for the struggling pacific tree frogs who came back in noticeable numbers this year but horrid hard on those of us trying to avoid West Nile.

The little dog caught a wiff of something in the air. She paused for a moment, not sure if she was certain what she thought she smelled. Then went about her business for a new york minute before freezing again and sniffing the subtle breeze. This time she was certain and her nose hit the ground as she dashed off. Not long afterwards came the backwoods southern man with the little dog in his arms “If you’d waited on Bo to protect you, you’d be a gonner!”, he laughed. And he held his little schnauzer princess proudly as he told me his shaggy dog story about how she knew he was on his way long before the hairless girl or I caught on. And it’s true, Bitzy loves her #1 human. If he didn’t come find us soon, she would have had to use her Jedi mind tricks to bring him to us.

I suggested we go walk to the old septic tank area of the yard. Not that there’s a septic tank there any more, that’s long gone. Yet that little area down the hill where the wild things grow is seldom a place we visit. But something stirred in me and I just knew that’s where I wanted to be.

Bo was the first to charge through the wrought iron gate to the pool, barking loudly because she knows Martha lives down there and for whatever reason, she is HER #1 human. We chatted for a minute then I went around and down a ways to look at the over growth and blooms, careful to keep an eye on Bitzy who is allergic to bees. Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw something yellow and black flying around an old fruit tree. It looked like a butterfly, but it flew like a dragon and it’s wings were narrow like a dragon fly. I tried to get a closer look, but it never landed to let me gaze at it’s body. I called the southern man over to come see this weird winged visitor. He said it’s a butterfly and grabbed my phone to shoot a video to show me. I said it certainly LOOKS LIKE a butterfly, but it flies differently I said. Pointing out that it’s wings looked more like a dragon than a swallowtail with the same markings.

It’s not often I see something “new” in the yard and well, a new yellow fairy lingering around long enough for me to watch her dance in the air .. it was certainly auspicious.

My PlantNet  and InsectID app are hands down my two most favorite little programs on my android phone. I was able to capture a still frame from the video my husband took and input that into the bug detector and it told me this was a Zebra Longwinged Butterfly. “Zebra”? I smiled to myself at the irony of it all.

Shaman wisdom for Butterfly suggests:

• The power of the whirlwind
• Reincarnation
• Transformation
• Transmutation
• Magick

I guess Butterfly Magick is still weaving it’s story, because this morning, I noticed a very large caterpillar having it’s last supper on an oversized Lotus pad that was slowly dissolving back into the water at the end of it’s season. The wiggle worm had already eaten much of the leaf and was basking in the sun. Perfect distance for my InsectID app which tells me it’s a “Spodoptera litura” more commonly known as the Cotton leafworm or Tobacco cutworm. To which the Southern man pointed out to me that he use to see these all the time in Kentucky when he worked on a tobacco farm. Google said they weren’t toxic to ingest, so we flicked it off into the pond. Our school of mosquito fish have been known to tear the limbs off small frogs and devour them entirely in the blink of an eye. While the koi readily eat the odd earthworm we find for their dining pleasure. But despite Google’s assurance the cutworm was harmless, the mosquito eater pool wanted NOTHING to do with this creepy crawly. A few of the goldfish tried to mouth it but quickly withdrew. Even our minnow eating platinum koi who we’ve seen devour mosquito fish in her path … went to nip and it and quickly turned away. Apparently Google was wrong, or at the very least this was unappetizing.

So the southern man took matters into his own hands. As he’s fond to remind me, don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to. Suffice to say, the cutworm won’t be dining in our garden tonight.

So one rare winged treat and one invasive pest within 24 hours. I guess that’s the yin/yang of having it all, is it not? Even in my small little life, where the plot seems thin, there is so much story in each moment we pause to watch it unfold. Or look it up on the little android app. 😉