Irish Butterflies.

I'm supposed to be researching hotels and B-and-B's for our summer Ireland trip. Really, I'm supposed to be prepping for Easter, but I've got a nasty cold.

However,  instead of googling Irish get-aways, I typed the words Irish butterflies.

Fritillaries (silver-washed and pearl-bordered instead of our gulf frit), holly blues, and essex skippers.

Red admirals (central and north Florida on this side of the pond), ringlets, graylings, and gatekeepers.

It's truly a beautiful way to get to know the country's natural side - words like wood (versus forest),  burren (a rocky landscape) and bog (that's Irish for a spongy swamp)  dot descriptions of butterfly habitats.

Bogs throughout the  UK risk overharvesting of peat - a coal used for fuel and heating. The Scots like peat for whiskey, too, but alas, even the Scots have given up 30 hectares to conserving the Wester Moss, a bog outside the charming city of Stirling host to the rare large heath butterfly. Actually, I came across a ton of UK websites and articles about bfly conservation and plans for the world's largest butterfly house. I guess their yesteryear fascination with butterflies filtered into later generations.

I do have a little Irish bfly - a gift from a dear friend and fellow bfly gardener. She visited the Waterford Crystal factory during her trip to Ireland, and came back with these gems, one for another dear friend and bfly gardener, and one for me:

She's landed on my Easter table for the weekend. In time, she'll flit back to my kitchen window to perch by the violets.

Happy Passover, Happy Easter, and Irish bfly blessins' to yeh, dear Confessions Readers.

Next On My List.

17th century Somerset, England.

Lady Eleanor Glanville. 

Inherited vast estates from her father.

Paid her servants to collect butterflies in thin, glassine papers.

A violent husband and their ungrateful children declared her 'mad' in an attempt to steal her properties.

Nearly lost her case due to her butterfly collecting and reports from neighbors that she was seen outdoors 'half-dressed' (tank top and shorts?) and beating bushes to collect 'worms' (that would be cats) in drapes of cloth.

After her death, Forest, a son, contested her will that left him a meager legacy. He won on grounds of her 'lunacy' and inherited his mother's fortune.

Part of her bfly collection is housed in London's Natural History Museum. God (and hubby) help me, I'll get back to England for the Jack-the-Ripper tour and the Natural History Museum's bfly collection. 

So, back to Eleanor. Don't you just wanna read a book about her life??

I do.

And I found one. As soon as I finish The Sound of Butterflies by Rachel King (a STRANGE Edwardian-era tale of a British fellow in the Brazilian rain forests and his erotic, yes, erotic obsession with butterfly pursuit and collection), next on my list is Lady of the Butterflies by Fiona Mountain.

Now to go outside 'half-dressed' to see how the 'worms' are doing.

See you on the flip-side, Confessions readers.

Dead Butterflies.

I possess three, um, dead butterflies - one boxed, one pressed like a keepsake, and one artfully mounted. I could say I 'own' these bflies, but that implies that I sought them out or bought them myself.

The boxed one is a male monarch in a cheap cassette-tape holder, tossed on a storage shelf at work.

I control the inventory in that room, and I knew at least ten years had passed since that monarch had wound up there. I could've housed him with the microscopes and slide specimens, but he came home with me. I have plans for him, too.

Which leads to my pressed butterfly - another boy of the monarch persuasion, flattened in a book.  My mother found him during the poignant process of helping a friend go through her mother's things after she'd passed from this world to a heaven plentiful with butterflies. So the little guy was passed on to a good home, namely, mine. The presentation to me was quite ceremonial - Mom's Dave framed the fella, and I got a thorough explanation of his discovery and the painstaking framing process. Once I find a complimentary frame, the storage-shelf bfly will get the same decorative treatment.

My mounted butterfly was a Christmas gift - Dave as well. He was worried I'd not like such a gift, seeing as I raise and release bflies. Still, I named her Victoria and hung her in my home office, a.k.a. "the butterfly room." She's more mounted than pressed, her yellow wings lifted as in flight. And she's the bfly in the Butterfly Confessions Also logo. I've no idea her species nor origin. She was bought at a retail shop and the frame says "Made In China."

What strikes me most about these butterflies are their colors - they never fade. They own their colors. Or do they possess them...?