Dear Reader:

Before I left for Edisto last week… for the first time… I heard a word ( in the news) I hoped to never here again… Armageddon.

I was Eva Cate’s age (12) the last time I heard it-at Horace Sisk Junior High in Fayetteville North Carolina. America was in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I remember looking it up after hearing it on the news from President Kennedy. It read: Armageddon will be the last battle fought between good and evil.

I still get shivers reading the definition again and feel just as helpless as I did then. I shake my head at Putin in dismay… more in fear now from an adult perspective because of the reports coming in on his mental state with Russians rebelling against him/I am sure something he would have never foreseen. And if he doesn’t do something… N Korea looms in the distance too.

We are all realizing that our world has grown so small that we can’t pretend anymore that this is a problem ” over there.” Ukraine’s situation is our situation, whether we like it or not… ” First they came for the Ukrainians, … and then they came for us. ”

After the butterflies literally followed my car through Ravenel… I started reading about butterfly gardens. I discovered that butterflies and their caterpillars can’t eat just any plant-( picky eaters) They need to eat whatever plants evolved along with them in their neighborhoods. ( Over 45,000 species of butterflies-each evolving eating the flowering plants that grew around them.)

Over tens of millions of years butterflies and their favorite plants lived happily together. But then man entered the picture and mixed up the plants, bringing new plants from other parts of the world-they planted them as crops, gardens, roads or landscaping.

Many new plants choked out native plants-others got bulldozed to build shopping malls and housing. The butterfly population began to dwindle and has drastically decreased in modern times- a sampling of what they once were. Today we can help by adding native plants to our gardens.

And… for many species of adult butterflies-they feed on the nectar of milkweed flowers. But only monarch caterpillars can eat the milkweed plant itself. Gardeners must also remember to never cut down the flowers when they look dead-they will turn into seeds or berries to feed native birds.

( Anne gave me milkweed pod seeds for my birthday and is going to show me the procedure to plant them -how and when for a butterfly garden )

So until tomorrow…A butterfly garden helps butterflies, plants, and birds continue to live in harmony with each other. Don’t we wish we could send magical milkweed pod seeds to those trying to destroy the earth’s harmony and instead let the butterflies bring about freedom and world peace to a battered planet who needs it desperately? No longer living in fear of Armageddon… just enjoying watching butterfly gardens?

Today is my favorite day-Winnie the Pooh

Look what I found in my garden yesterday? A yellow butterfly who was feeding off my camellias that bloomed while I was gone!

The camellias and morning glories surprised me with their abundance … expanding while I was gone.