The ballet is being presented daily across the road from our house. Hundreds of white and sulphur butterflies dance and pirouette all day above our neighbor’s field of oats. I have no idea why they choose this particular spot for their performance, but I’m enjoying my ringside seat.

On our side of the road the principal dancers are more varied. We have provided some spectacular floral scenery for them. Monarchs flutter constantly in the milkweed blossoms, frequently doing mid-air pas de deux. Red Admirals are cavorting everywhere… the abundance of this classy little butterfly has not been this great since 1991. Stars such as the Mourning Cloak and Swallowtails stage solos through the blossoms. We are enjoying a stellar butterfly year along the shore.

When it became apparent that this was the summer of Lepidoptera, I headed for the computer and found a site listing all the families and subfamilies of Wisconsin butterflies. Throwing all caution to the winds, I hit the “Print” button and promptly depleted all the colored ink cartridges. It was worth the price. I now can stand in the front yard and identify our butterfly visitors. It would be so rude not to know the names of our guests. I’m sure we are hosting some Eastern Commas this week. They have lots of look-alike Comma cousins, but my computer generated guide book is a big help.

I know the butterfly show has a short run. The curtain of Fall will come down all too soon. I intend to see as many performances as possible.

It is a scientific fact that teenage boys vaporize food…lots of food. When my own son was a teenager, he had no problem consuming a half pound of cheddar cheese as a little after school snack. So we made a deal. If he ate all the main ingredients of the dinner I was going to make when I came home from work, he would be the one to bike to the store for replacements.

I haven’t been responsible for feeding a male adolescent for many years, so was out of practice  at a family event a while back. Three teenage boys were among the guests at our house. I split a dozen large Sheboygan hard rolls, buttered them lavishly and stuck them in the oven to toast. I put a basket with the twenty-four rolls on the kid’s table, served the other guests and was about to sit down when I noticed the rolls had vanished. So I put twenty-four more buns topped with another half pound of butter in to grill. The scenario repeated itself instantly except this time I sat down to eat, too, sans roll.

At this year’s party I was prepared. Four dozen Sheboygan hard rolls were stuffed into my freezer awaiting their apocalypse.

The younger generation of our family is awash with girls, but we do have two little boys amidst our sea of females. I will be ready when they hit their teen years. I’m going to emulate the cooking methods of Sourdough Sam, Paul Bunyan’s camp cook:

“Sam’s cookshack itself was over two miles long. One whole side was taken up by the great griddle, on which he fried the sourdough flapjacks for which he was famous. It kept a whole bunkhouse full of cookees busy hauling wood for it. The batter was mixed in a big reservoir Paul had dug on a hill back of camp. The mixing was done with an old river steamboat which was kept busy steaming back and forth all night across the lake of sourdough. When the breakfast whistle blew, the floodgates were opened and the batter poured through a flume to a sprinkler system that squirted the cakes on the griddle.

Flunkies with sides of bacon strapped to their boots skated over the smoking surface, greasing it and turning the flapjacks with scoop shovels. As fast as they were done they were stacked on wagons drawn by four horses, which galloped to the mess hall, up a ramp, and down the middle of the great table, while men with cant hooks rolled the cakes off onto the plates. Another four-horse outfit, hitched to a sprinkler wagon, followed  close behind with the syrup.”

Sounds like a plan.

Quote from  “Ol’ Paul, The Mighty Logger”, by Glen Rounds

Frances told me one night at dinner that she had no stories.

“Of course you do,” I replied, “you have lived ninety years.”

This conversation occurred at the dinner table at my aunt’s assisted living. My aunt ate with the same three friends, and I came to know them well during my monthly visits out west.

“No, I really don’t,” Frances insisted. “You and your aunt tell such good stories at every meal.”

My aunt, though almost deaf, entertained us with humorous tales of her world travels with my cantankerous, intrepid and globe trotting uncle.

“Frances,” I said, “if you think hard, you will definitely find some stories.” I know that the extremely elderly have an abundance of time to think.

The next night, Frances sat down and announced, “I have a story.”

Frances had lived her whole life in Tulsa, Oklahoma. As a young girl, she was fascinated by her big brother’s brand new Model T. When out for rides with him, she carefully observed what he did. And then, one day, she “borrowed” his Model T and took it for a joy ride out into the wide, open, oil rig dotted spaces around Tulsa where she ran out of gas.

Let me tell you that at ninety, Frances was still a beautiful woman. She did not remain stranded for long.

Once Frances found her stories, many more followed. Oklahoma state troopers who hid in the cleverest places and spoiled her driving fun figured prominently in many of them. Frances obviously had a lead foot on the accelerator pedal and a true love of the endless western roads. We all enjoyed her stories for several years.

But then, one evening, the chair at Frances’ place was empty. She remained in her room for two weeks with hospice care, and then she died.  We are so lucky that  Frances did not take her stories with her.

You have to love a country that has the word “happiness” in its Declaration of Independence. Granted, the Founding Fathers only gave us the right to pursue bliss. They wisely knew that happiness is elusive. But what better time than The Fourth of July to pursue some happiness?

Sadly, America has become like a married couple who hate each other and refuse to find any common ground.  They spend all their time together trying to demean, demoralize and dehumanize one other. Absolutely nothing good can come out of such a relationship or anything it touches.

The fear and hate mongers among us are predicting doom for America because of our huge national deficits. Being prudent with money, I don’t underrate the seriousness of this situation. But I will state with uncharacteristic certainty that America will not be ruined by deficits. If we fall from greatness, hatred will be our undoing.

Throughout history, bad economic times cause people to look for scapegoats. The poorest and least powerful always get the blame; after all, they are the easiest targets. Hatred and its sidekick, dysfunction, then unravel the fabric of society.

Searing as it was,The Great Depression did not destroy America. My parents’ generation was badly scarred, but they survived.  And I owe my life of economic stability to the lessons my parents gleaned from those dark days and imprinted on me. Those lessons did not include hating and ridiculing everyone that did not look or think like me.

Here is my survival plan for this glorious Fourth of July. I will view the exploding fireworks as symbols of hatred being blown to bits. I will remain hopeful that the USA will get back to the real business at hand: working together to form a more perfect union where happiness is at least a possibility for all.

The mint died. Those three word sum up our gardening abilities. How could two people who love plants so much have such tragically ungreen thumbs?

Nevertheless, our attempt to create a natural yard enters its fourteenth season with some glimmers of hope despite the empty spot the mint formerly occupied. More than three quarters of the prairie and meadow plants that we put in last summer have returned. Joe Pye Weed ( an excellent meadow plant despite its name) did take his own good time coming back, but one day he poked up his head. The milkweed patch is thriving thanks to my husband’s valiant efforts to remove the crown vetch that had invaded the milkweeds’ turf.

The biggest success and mystery is the return of the little blue stem. Several years back, we seeded the entire front patch with this lovely prairie grass. For some unknown reason, the grass came up in only one quarter of the place we planted it, but that quarter is gorgeous. We gladly will view this as the grass one quarter full as opposed to three quarters empty.

Buoyed by our horticultural successes, we visited The Flying Pig in Algoma, Wisconsin, to purchase more plants for the meadow. I am completely smitten by the Flying Pig. This lovely establishment combines an art gallery with a plant nursery, a truly inspired combination. If the ladies who run it charged admission, I would gladly pay. They have created an enchanted space, both indoors and out.

We loaded our car with plants recommended for their stalwartness with both lousy soil and bumbling gardeners. By the end of July and August we invite everyone up to see how our garden grows. Prairie plants peak at this time, but we don’t make any promises.