Butterfly in a Winter Wood~

On January 23, 2014March 6, 2014 By cindy knokeIn Conservation, GARDENING AT THE HOLLER, HOLLER HAPPENINGS, MY PHOTOGRAPHS124 Comments

We are in the air and on the move. If all goes well, my next post will be from sunny San Juan Puerto Rico! I will not be able to post, or comment on your wonderful posts for the next few days. But once we settle in, I hope to be back and blogging at least some of the time. Meanwhile I leave you with these holler butterflies and hopes that all is well with you!

They seemed to come suddenly on happiness as if they had surprised a butterfly in a winter wood~ Edith Wharton
Painted Lady (Please click to enlarge).

The butterfly, a cabbage white,
(his honest idiocy of flight)
will never now, it is too late,
master the art of flying straight~ Robert Evans
Cabbage White

Butterflies are flowers that fly and all but sing~ Robert Frost
Black Veined Tiger

I do not know if I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man~ Chaung Tzu
Tiger Swallow Tail

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has to go through to achieve that beauty~ Maya Angelou

Happiness is a butterfly which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp~ Ponce Denis Ecouchard Lebrun

I ask only to be free. The butterflies are free~ Charles Dickens

The Holler is unseasonably warm and there are still flutterbyes here! May the sight of the butterflies warm your day! Sending you cheers and well wishes as we travel! Talk to soon from exotic islands!

Busy Day at The Holler!

On June 5, 2013June 5, 2013 By cindy knokeIn HOLLER HAPPENINGS, MY PHOTOGRAPHS82 Comments

The roadrunner did his usual morning investigations and stopped for a nano-second to barely let me get this shot. He’s a very fast evader. He has to be to get away from all the Wiley E’s.

These little finches have left their nest and are almost ready to fly away, but not quite yet. You can see they are fledged, but still have bits of down. I didn’t dare take more than this pic because they froze in stillness when they saw me and I didn’t want to scare them. Their parents nest every year in our inner courtyard.

This is the nest they left this morning.

Some birds like the red-tailed hawks reuse they nests each year, but not the finches. They rebuild the new nest right by the old ones.
This little guy was scratching for bugs in his favorite spot….

The lizards sibs were sunning on a rock….

When this intruder sashayed in.

Resulting in many defensive push-ups in the spiny lizard community, but not much else, they were way too comfy resting in the sun.

The bumbles were buzzing.

The flutters were flying.

The hummingbird resting.

The bunnies eating.

When the sun set a fire on another holler night.

Sweet dreams from The Holler!