Shouldn't…but Do

She returned this evening, as she does.  A praying mantis.  Each evening now, as days shorten and chill, she overnights near my office window.

Like her mother before her, she laid egg cases in the agastache in the garden beneath the window and now sits quietly next to them.  Her mother was the biggest praying mantis I ever saw.  Inside the gate,  tucked off from harsh wind, the garden is protected.  A good place to live life.

She is dying now – like her mother before her.  Once bright green, she is browning.  She remains so still I think she has already passed.  It is so cold now.   In spring, I will bury her in that garden as I did her mother.  I am sure there is a keen biological reason for the similarity of habit.  But I prefer  the memory of generations.

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It was the sharp colour on dead leaves that caught my eye.  About two weeks ago.  Closer inspection turned up a monarch caterpillar.  Surprisingly plump fellow for the decaying  stalks of milkweed in his vicinity.

With drought and all sorts of fancy weather patterns, we spotted no monarch caterpillars this year,  assuming, like everything else in the garden, they bloomed and flew off early.

But here was a longshot.  Closing in on November, no food source, and nighttime temperatures edging toward a freeze.  To improve his chances, I relocated him to a more secluded spot in the garden where milkweed leaves remained large and green.

Just that night a storm blew through, by morning I found  no trace.  Wherever it was, I wished it well.

Cleaning up the garden this week, there are few leaves left on any tree or plant.  Filling a composting bag, I turned to scoop up another leaf pile when I noticed it.  Hanging by the slimmest of threads on the edge of the bag, the unmistakable form of a monarch chrysalis, green sheathed cocoon with golden zipper, caught on the bag itself.  From the location, my guess  is I had seen this fellow before.  It wove its chrysalis onto a dead leaf that promptly blew into the garden, leaving it dreadfully exposed.

I tied a tiny thread on the chrysalis stem, suspended it from a stick, and placed it in a jar.  It  rode out distant echoes of Hurricane Sandy inside my house, inside its chrysalis.  I watch daily for signs of failure, they may yet come, its journey late begun, then disrupted, now still.

This one is a Longshot, the name stuck.  I am hoping for the best.

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In a recent post I gave a  sidelong glance to the questionable virtue of weeds.   I must report having since found virtue in the Genus Solidago, the goldenrods.

Noticed first in my yard, mimicking Pitcher sage –  it bloomed like the sun.  Then seen spread across this region, ditches, fields – by plant or by pasture – goldenrod gets around.

A harbinger of autumn, goldenrod is the best kind of  traveler.  Where my world is limited to garden edge, goldenrod tirelessly journeys without bound, seeing sights, setting down roots, experiencing the rush of the world and the quiet of dawn.

Adaptable, sociable, with sturdy stem not likely battered by breeze,  flexible enough to bend.  My hat is off to this charmer – pure gold.

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