All Nature Sings: The Beauty, Brevity and Vulnerability of Life

How wonderful it was to spend a week recently with our Winnipeg children and grandchildren at a cottage near Lac du Bonnet -- swimming, observing nature, playing games, reading, cooking, eating -- just being together and enjoying life!

The owners of the cottage have made a flower garden that is full of amazing creatures. I have learned from our botanist son-in-law, Chris, what to look for in a garden like this:

 

Monarch caterpillar feeding on a milkweed plant

Milkweed leaf beetles procreating

(photo by Chris Friesen)

My wish, since becoming acquainted with this garden, was to see a monarch leaving its cocoon. That did not happen last summer and I was hoping it might this summer. I inspected the milkweed carefully every day but saw no cocoons about to open.

Then this:

Hardy was sitting on a bench close to the cottage, quite a distance from the milkweed garden, when he saw something hanging from one of the wrought-iron hand rests of the bench. He wondered what it was.
It turned out to be a monarch cocoon about to burst open!  Chris said he could not understand why a monarch caterpillar would cocoon on a metal bench so far from its normal habitat, the milkweed in the garden. We sat for a long time, hoping something would happen, as the cocoon had already changed from green to white. We finally had to go in for supper.

The next morning, grandson Ivan called me to look at the bench, and there on the railing sat a gorgeous monarch, drying its wings in preparation for its life journey! Again, I sat for a long time, hoping to see it take off. I had to leave, and when I returned it was gone! I wondered about this monarch and its future. It had settled in such a unique place, and then, when no one was watching, quietly slipped away.
I hoped a predator had not picked it up. I recently heard that the monarch is a threatened species, its population diminished by 80%! Another name for the monarch is "wanderer" and if this monarch survives it will cover thousands of miles to go to Florida or Mexico. The next generation will return to Canada in spring. No Covid restrictions! Life is precious but precarious for this monarch!

When we returned from the cottage, we noticed a black butterfly hovering over the dill and parsley I had planted in a pot on our deck. It was a black swallowtail.

Soon there were little black specks all over the plants. These gradually turned into ravenous caterpillars that pretty much cleaned out my dill! I wonder where they will all cocoon. 

These butterflies have caused me to ponder about several things: the beauty of life but also its precariousness and its brevity. What is the meaning of life, specifically my life?
I came across a poem recently that speaks to me about all of this:

This post is dedicated to:  

The unnamed children in residential schools who didn't make it home but quietly disappeared.

Our friends who slipped from their earthly bonds and to whom we could not say proper farewells
during this COVID time: 

Fred, Helen, Henry, Helmut, Ferd, Mary, Erhard, Alvina

You are loved and missed by many whose lives you touched.