Hello my dear friends 🦋
I never really cared about Mama’s garden before not even a little bit. I just thought it was this spot where she had spend every single morning bending down to water all her plants and fuss over the soil.. It never seemed like anything special to me just green stuff and flowers i could not even name. But last week she asked me to help carry some water buckets and that’s when everything changed..
I walked out there with her and stopped dead in my tracks LOOK! There are tons of butterflies fluttering all over the place!! I mean i knew bugs were around but i had no idea there were so many of these pretty little things. Their wings are so colorful it made my eyes go wide. I just stood there staring like “WHOA!!! How did i never see this before?!”
The very first one i spotted was all deep dark red and rich purple. It landed right on a big fat green leaf near the tomato plants and when the morning sun hit it just right the edges of its wings glowed pink and shiny. It looked like someone had taken juice from ripe grapes and berries and painted it all over thin paper so bright and pretty!
Mama laughed when she saw me staring and said “Oh yeah that one’s been coming here for months now!” I felt so silly because i was always glued to my phone whenever i was outside never looking up to notice what was right in front of me. She said it loves to hang out near her rose bushes and sip nectar from the pink flowers no wonder i never saw it i always walked past them too fast!
Then another butterfly came floating by this one was mostly brown but not the dull kind you see everywhere. When it opened its wings all the way to soak up the sun you could see tiny lines crisscrossing all over them like when you draw little patterns on paper with a crayon. It moved so slow and calm drifting from one yellow flower to the next..
I tried to creep closer to get a better look and i was quiet as can be holding my breath so i would not make any noise and scare it away. But the best one by far was this gorgeous thing that’s black all over with bright blue spots along the edges of its wings. When it flew around those blue parts sparkled like little pieces of shiny candy wrapper catching the light!
It kept zooming over the big yellow hibiscus flowers that Mama planted near the fence sometimes it would fold its wings shut and hide all that pretty blue then pop them open again when it took off to fly somewhere else. I must have stood there watching it for like ten minutes straight just waiting to see those bright blue spots flash again and again!
There are way more types too! One’s light brown with weird twisty lines all over looks like a tiny maze you could trace with your finger.. Another’s dark brown with big white dots like it’s wearing a polka dot shirt! And even one with thick white and brown stripes plus tiny blue bits at the very ends of its wings looks like it’s all dressed up for a party or something cool!
Mama came over and stood next to me smiling as we watched them all dance around the garden. “They have always been here sweetheart,” she said gently. “They love my flowers so much especially the lantana and hibiscus i grow just for them.” She said the colors help them find each other or hide from birds but honestly? They just look like little living rainbows hanging out in our yard. Now i make sure to sit out there every morning with a chair just watching them fly and play. They make me so happy and i finally know how to slow down and look at all the cool stuff around me! I never thought the most amazing colors i had ever see would not be up in the sky they had be right here in Mama’s garden all along..