Summer is upon us! Remember that old Farmer's Almanac adage about getting your flowers planted before Memorial Day? Never mind my yard, this year I planted in my shop. Why don't you take a moment and stroll down my virtual garden path? You'll see a lot of butterflies and flowers.

Mostly butterflies, actually. What is it exactly about those creatures that we love? When it's the middle of a Wisconsin winter and I see butterflies adorning things at estate sales, I reach for them instinctively. They are interlopers that flit in from another world, like a beloved child home from college. I marvel at their wings -- as thin as a nightgown. And is there a biological reason why they're so colorful and showy? 

Welcome to my indoor sanctuary. Click on photos to see the listing at Finder Not Keeper. 

Happy Memorial Day weekend planting. May your knees be limber, your dirt be rich, and your thumbs be green. Here's the rest of the Emily Dickinson poem I referenced in today's post title.

From Cocoon forth a Butterfly
As Lady from her Door
Emerged—a Summer Afternoon—
Repairing Everywhere—

Without Design—that I could trace
Except to stray abroad
On Miscellaneous Enterprise
The Clovers—understood—

Her pretty Parasol be seen
Contracting in a Field
Where Men made Hay—
Then struggling hard
With an opposing Cloud—

Where Parties—Phantom as Herself—
To Nowhere—seemed to go
In purposeless Circumference—
As ’twere a Tropic Show—

And notwithstanding Bee—that worked—
And Flower—that zealous blew—
This Audience of Idleness
Disdained them, from the Sky—

Till Sundown crept—a steady Tide—
And Men that made the Hay—
And Afternoon—and Butterfly—
Extinguished—in the Sea—