The butterfly counts not months, but moments, and has time enough. … Rabindranath Tagore
We’ve had a beautiful summer here in Kentucky – the first one in several years where we had enough rain to keep the fields green into August. I took a walk this week through our hayfield before my husband mowed it and counted butterflies. Well, not actually how many butterflies I saw, but how many butterflies of different colors, sizes and markings. The past few dry summers, it has seemed as if butterflies were becoming scarce. But this year they have rebounded. I counted almost twenty different looking butterflies in my mile and a half walk. The one in the picture is not one of them. I didn’t have my camera with me this week so this is a butterfly I captured in my lens earlier this summer on a thistle bloom. But on my walk I saw little white and yellow butterflies. I saw Monarchs and lots of black ones with yellow spots. I spotted one black with blue spots. I saw small orange butterflies with big spots and other little orange butterflies that wouldn’t stay still long enough for me to see their spots.
I didn’t look up any varieties. You’ll have to use your imagination or go out in the fields and see what’s flying around your way. I was just having fun as I gave my mind a break from editing my book, Words Spoken True that will be out next February. I like this story. It’s different from my Shaker stories and from my family stories too. It’s a true historical romance. The 1855 Louisville history is a great backdrop for the romance. Suffice it to say, the setting is not my Harmony Hill Shaker village. There are no rules against romance in this story. The edits so far have been minor – mostly rewording scenes to make them read smoother and to cut out those pet words that I seem to love to overuse.
But those of you who love that Harmony Hill Shaker Village setting, don’t despair. The next thing I edit will be The Gifted, my fifth Shaker book. I saw the cover last week and all it needs is a butterfly. 🙂 Actually I have my heroine, Jessamine, thinking about caterpillars turning into butterflies in that story. Sometimes all the threads come together.
Thank you so much for reading, and I do very much appreciate all of you who shared comments about what you like to see in newsletters. My birthday giveaway will be open for entries until the end of September, so if you haven’t entered and would like to, either send me an e-mail or leave a comment here saying you’d like to be entered. You can check my website or the archives here to see what you might win. I’ll be posting about it again too before I do the drawing for winners.
If you want an extra chance to win a copy of The Blessed, you can go to Trish Perry’s Reading, Writing and the Stuff In-Between and leave a comment in answer to my question there. It’s a question my dog and animal loving friends might have fun answering.
Last but not least, here’s a quote I found about butterflies. It sounds like something my character, Jessamine might say.
” How does one become a butterfly?” she asked.
” You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.” (Unknown author)