Winter Blues ~ Eastern-tailed Blue, Summer Azure and Silvery Blue

Dreaming of Blues fluttering around the garden can shake off the mantle-of-melancholy winter sometimes weaves about our spirits. Today, I gather some delightful, inspiring and tender butterfly encounters, from this past sizzling summer, and toss them on this page of white, that they may bring a ray of light, to warm the inner gardeners folded inside our longing souls. 

Eastern Tailed-Blue Butterflies of 2013

The progeny of these gossamer-wings are now chrysalises, or caterpillars in the Eastern Tailed-Blue's case, tucked away in crevices within mossy mounds, pods of vetches and clover, or along the frozen winter ground. Little fragile beings within their sleepy pupa or larva state, without realizing their fate, without questioning, without knowing, without hoping to survive the onslaught of freeze and thaw, human flaws and sharp bird beaks, simply, sweetly sleep, waiting for transformation. 

Summer Azure Butterflies of 2013

Holding on throughout the bleak winter months, many new Blues will emerge, along with our gladdened hearts, into the warm breath of spring. I hope and imagine hundreds of butterflies surviving the numerous perils that come between them and their completed metamorphosis. Such gossamery treasures tickle emotions and call the caring mind to action in thoughtful ways towards their wellbeing. An added appreciation for subtleties in shades of blues and grays awakens this slothful painter, when gazing upon the pastel Blues.

Silvery Blue Butterflies of 2013

Without snow cover, butterfly chrysalises and caterpillars are more vulnerable. Just beneath the old apple tree, gray birch and blueberry bushes, precious life is quietly in hiding.

I love birds too and they enjoy all the stages of butterflies equally, especially at this lean time of year.  No snow coverage is good news for this little Carolina Wren, who has decided to move in and live year round.

Wren and other bird beaks are perfect for lifting up the leaves and digging for larva nuggets below. Too bad for the butterflies being of the lower food chain, but then, butterflies fasten hundreds and hundreds of eggs to various host plants assuring there will always be trembling gossamer-wings to pollinate and touch our hearts. I say, always, but heedless humans do have a hand in the decline of butterflies of all kinds.

Foggy, frosty, winter morning sunrises are wondrous to behold just outside the windows and doors. I feel blessed to start the day in this inspiring way. A branch of the Mill River runs between the hill where Flower Hill Farm is situated and Carey Hill just due east, making for a great show of mist most every dawn. I am less excited about the sheet of wood smoke that is always more gray.

Millions of unique snowflakes fall, thickening a fleecy snow-blanket, sheltering tiny life. It is heart-warming to know of all the diverse, quiescent wildlife sleeping beneath the surface of snow in layers of detritus deeper below. In the dance of life, all is in limbo, uncertainties abound upon a blanketed earth.

Winter can be beautiful in its frozen snow-blossom way. Creating an ever changing wonderland with a great deal to explore, to ponder and exclaim about. It can soften the mind and loosen binding thoughts of gloom. If its beauty fails to lift our spirits, it may help to remember that the little Blues are placidly waiting too. 

The Closing of 2013 ~ Gathering Moments Past Pixels and Pages of Wildlife

As Twenty-thirteen comes to a close, I happily begin my annual series of sharing precious highlighted encounters with wondrous wildlife here on my farm . . .  from the days, months, pages and frames of this last year, pixels will emerge revealing a shared wildness reaching inwards as it dances in the breezes gently floating through fields and forest. Plant, flower and tree memories will also resurface in the upcoming weeks . . . a lovely way to nurture the imagination and keep its rich soil soft and supple throughout the long freezing winter. I hope all visiting this blog might find the stories hopeful and inspiring too.

Gardening for wildlife is surprisingly, one of the greatest joys of my life . . . joys that are so intricately connected to my well-being and that of our earth. Surprising, still, to this day, for when I first put garden fork and spade into the dark loamy crust covering my land, I had a more painterly plan. Though loving birds and butterflies for most of my life, I had no idea of the numbers, the intricate beauty within the variety of species that would find Flower Hill Farm to their liking, satisfying their requirements for raising a family of their own.

My consciousness today has evolved as the gardens and land around me have taught me to listen and see more than what I first started out imaging a garden to be. Though many basic ideas and convictions, such as never using poison i.e. pesticides and chemical fertilizers, have remained constant and even more mindful, I have yielded to other more relaxing ways of living with my landscape and for many reasons, I am so much happier for surrendering.

Stepping out into gardens, fields and forest, and feasting on these startling and strikingly beautiful creatures, can be as thrilling as stepping out of a vaporetto onto old Venetian stones, or as powerful as standing before a vast ocean or orchestra. Sometimes it feels like a fairy tale, with all the macabre features thrown in, and yet it is the most intimately real of our reality and the most precious, as our children and grandchildren, to protect.

There were many new 'first sightings' for me this year along with some noted absences. Most noted would have to be the Monarch butterfly and marking the first year, since thirty have passed, of not finding the female's eggs or caterpillars to raise. In fact, I only had three Monarch butterfly sightings in my garden this past season, after years of reporting hundreds over the summer and fall. We all know now, that the entire northeast and more has lost, perhaps forever, the glorious migration of the monarchs due to round-up ready crops and sprayings along their migration route here in the US. I hope we are all planting milkweed and also calling our reps in Congress and that Monarchs will again fly into our gardens and fasten their eggs to milkweed. This absence is just an flicker in the huge flame growing in our warming world and hopefully we may see more urgent action taken to curb our carbon footprints and by investing in clean, green energy. 

There is much to explore and share over these coming chilly months bringing us into the New Year. 

2013 brought me a cherished grandson. It was a year of getting organized and of dear friends who made that possible, of being accepted into a manuscript group and beginning to put form to my book, 'A Bestiary . . . Tales from a Wildlife Garden'. I will continue to post a monthly installment, as I have done for the last two years, over at Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens. Lovely chamber concerts, painting workshops and walks along the sea have delighted me. Lots of improvements and finishing touches for the retreat and many, many wonderful guests visiting from all over the world have enriched my life. 

I have been writing here less and less, but my blog, and the connections I have made through it, is still very important to me. I am so appreciative of your kind words of support. Thank you! I will continue to write about this Western Massachusetts hillside paradise, but I will be moving my blog soon. I am working with a website builder in creating a new website for my retreat and my work. My blog will be moved to, the soon to be newly developed, caroldukeflowers.com sometime in the next month or so. I will, sadly, lose all the followers I have here, but hope to figure out a way to reconnect with you. I want to wish you all . . . 

     HAPPIEST OF NEW YEARS! MANY BLESSINGS FOR 2014!