I left work earlier than usual today. A few cavers, fresh from the Guatemala Expedition, are returning and our house is a convenient stop over on their way further west and north. I wanted to be home to greet them. They'll be here any minute.

Leaving early grants me the pleasure of a few hours of workweek evening daylight hours. I am sure that this delight will increase with the growing summer, but right now these hours are at a premium, I haven't experienced them much all winter long. I often take this extra grant of time at home to walk our land. I still haven't been everywhere on it! Frequently, and especially when I'm not wearing long pants in which to brave the wild bramble on most of the land, my path follows our lane, at the front of the property. There are lots of flowers blooming along it right now. And the butterflies were out tonight! There must have been a hatch, there were several with ruffle-y wings not yet quite expanded to fullness for flight. There were bees, which I note especially right now amid so much news of the rapidly failing populations of honey bees. There were remarkably many black flies, as well. And of course mosquitoes. I actually screeched in fright at the big black bug that landed on my arm at one point - a large attack mosquito. I know better than to wander with bare legs, but my linen skirt rustling in the breeze felt so liberating that I didn't pause to change before heading out, so now I am itching and suffering the welts of mosquito nibbles. I absolutely marvel at how big they get, and at how weirdly shaped the sharply defined welts are on my wrists and behind my knees.

I visited our compost heap, and it seems it has been made into a fire ant apartment complex. I couldn't resist poking it with our compost stick, and watching them roil forth. As I sit here and type, I still have the 'creepy-crawlies' - the feeling that there are little teeny insects crawling on you, whether or not they actually are there. There are, in fact, a few small critters wandering lost up my shins, but I have crushed them to dust with my ninja-like reflexes heightened by fire ant paranoia.

The flowers that are blooming are called Firewheel, or Indian Blanket Flowers. They were being visited by Red Admiral Butterflies, in abundance. Also I spotted two American Buckeyes, a black swallowtail of some sort, and a large hairstreak. They were sunning in the fading light, and I was entranced. I think I saw about 20 individuals flittering about and pumping their wings. The winecups and the Texas Paintbrush are still blooming, and the field off of the short leg of Hwy 21 that I travel was still boiling over with bluebonnets. I lingered in the flower patch in the ditch, outside our gate at the very front of the land. Several folks drove by in big rumbling and whistling trucks, and waved at the girl standing by the side of the road, staring at the weeds.