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I confess this post has nothing to do with today's date. 

It just seemed like it would make a great title and I thought it was time for an update from the Hollow.

These photos are actually from a walk a few mornings ago.

Within just a few minutes, I spotted three different types of butterflies.

You'd be surprised how loud this trickle of water is. 

Not a quiet escape from the little pond to the creek by any means!

Autumn foliage drips from the trees...

...and nestles on the ground.

But there are still spring-like flowers blooming!

I'm afraid these little guys are going to disappear until spring after tonight. 

We're expecting our first hard freeze.

Hope you're staying warm wherever you are!

(P.S. Tomorrow is my mom's 82nd birthday! Please send her good wishes!)

Beginning to Bloom

Just in the nick of time, too!

I'm not the only one who's happy about it, either!

The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day He created spring. 

~ Bern Williams

I took a walk... Part 2 (Butterflies)

I have a good excuse for taking so long to post these butterfly photos I promised last week ... 

I was busy turning a whole year older and celebrating Easter surrounded by my kids. 

Most of these butterflies have flitted off to more colorful lands..

I'm glad I captured them when I did! 

"We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty."

Maya Angelou

"If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies."

Author Unknown

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly."

Richard Bach

"Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."

Nathaniel Hawthorne

"The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough." 

Rabindranath Tagore

"There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly."

Richard Buckminster Fuller

"Butterflies are self propelled flowers."

R.H. Heinlein

"We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever."

Carl Sagan

"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."

Anonymous

Butterflies and Sycamore Trees ... a Walk by the River

 On a recent weekend visit, 

our friends took us to one of their favorite spots, 

a path along a river that runs a short distance from their home near Houston. 

They were disappointed because the river was up from recent rains, 

preventing us from following their normal route.

I wasn't disappointed at all. 

Take my hand and I'll show you what my drought-weary butterfly-and-wildflower-starved eyes beheld...

Uh-oh! 

Watch out for poison ivy!

This butterfly kept posing... I kept snapping.

Sigh.

It came in November, but I finally got my Spring!

Weekends are for Walking

I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house.

~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

To-do lists were forgotten this past weekend.

The sunshine called me and I answered, heading for the woods
 and the wonder to be found there...

Follow me through the woods to a damselfly-covered pond,
 along a dry creek bed lined with ancient cedars,
and back up into the sunshine where butterflies feast on tiny yellow buds.