Burgeoning today in the color purple

Six-Word Saturday 5.18.24

#SquaresRenew

Bougie burgeoning bougainvillea

When our California daughter said something was”bougie,” I thought, “bougie?” Let’s just say she did not mean “a slender, flexible instrument introduced into passages of the body for dilating, examining, medicating, etc..”. The new use is a riff on bourgeois: “informal + usually disparaging : marked by a concern for wealth, possessions, and respectability,”

Can a bougainvillea be bougie? That’s up to you. But the two words work beautifully together so I say yes. And this bougainvillea is definitely burgeoning, giving me three b’s for Becky B today. 😉

#SquaresRenew

Move forward…turkeys

Earlier this year during a trip up Mt. Lemmon, we stopped for a flock of wild turkeys crossing the road, steadily moving forward. I guess they knew it wasn’t Thanksgiving.

#SquareRenew

Quintessential desert burgeoning

I love these yucca, which I consider one of the clan of Dr. Seuss plants, quirkily attractive and distinctive, that seem to have sprung from someone’s imagination…which I guess they did: from God’s. ❤️. They’re definitely burgeoning right now.

#SquaresRenew

Early morning sun

Early morning sun

Outlines and illuminates

Also lights my heart

Wordless Wednesday… not hopping right now

Into the storm

Sometimes you can get a chance photo from the car that turns out well. I like the ominous feeling of this one, the sense of heading into a storm of unknown intensity, the emptiness.

I don’t do much monochrome, but here I think it was the best choice. It actually was the only choice, because the color, or lack of it, hasn’t been adjusted.

Wordless Wednesday…looking sharp

Butterflies, part 2

As promised, more butterflies from the marvelous Butterfly Pavilion at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. Not only is the garden wonderful, a membership includesreciprocity with over 300 other gardens in the US. I’ve been to at least four other ones, several multiple times. Perhaps there’s a garden like this near you.

I’d not seen a butterfly with these colors before and based on the comments around me, others hadn’t either. I had to look carefully everywhere, as butterflies were perched in all sorts of places, just hanging out.

William Wordsworth, ‘To a Butterfly’.

I’ve watched you now a full half-hour;
Self-poised upon that yellow flower
And, little Butterfly! indeed
I know not if you sleep or feed.
How motionless!–not frozen seas
More motionless! and then
What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees,
And calls you forth again …

The pattern on the wings looked like a mosaic.

And then there were the butterflies-to-be, just hanging about in their butterfly nursery. ❤

A caterpillar,
this deep in fall –
still not a butterfly. ~Bashō

All the photos in yesterday’s and today’s post were taken with my iPhone.

Butterflies

I think we all agree that a long weekend is a great idea, so I began mine on Thursday last week, enjoying breakfast with fellow blogger John (https://photobyjohnbo.com/) and his lovely wife. As I was already far from home, I decided to stop at the Desert Botanical Garden where Donna (https://windkisses.com/) had assured me there were wildflowers in bloom. How could I pass that up?

As gorgeous as the wildflowers were (yes, there will be pictures), the Butterfly Pavilion captured me. As I headed to the entrance, one of my favorites things, an insect house/hotel, greeted me. Lots of apartments in this small space, but then insects don’t take up much room.

Entering the Pavilion is a bit like going through a space lock: enter, but don’t open the door to enter until the heavy plastic strips have closed behind you. Or perhaps the two are the other way ’round. I can’t remember exactly. Either way, don’t let the butterflies escape, especially as I got there not long after the release of hundreds of them. That must have been spectacular to see.

“Butterflies are self propelled flowers.” ― Robert A. Heinlein

There were lots of people inside and we were all warned to be careful where we stepped. There were lots of oohs and ahs as the colorful beauties were spotted. Although many pressed against the mesh that forms the “walls” of the pavilion, many more perched everywhere or floated past as we walked or crouched to take photos.

“A power of Butterfly must be –
The Aptitude to fly
Meadows of Majesty concedes
And easy Sweeps of Sky -”
― Emily Dickinson

“Butterflies can’t see their wings. They can’t see how truly beautiful they are, but everyone else can. People are like that as well.”― Naya Rivera

“A fallen blossom
returning to the bough, I thought —
But no, a butterfly.”
― Arakida Moritake, Traditional Japanese Poetry: An Anthology

Although its wings are a bit ragged, this one is still lovely.

Full disclosure: this is NOT an April Fool’s joke!! 🙂