Variety

Brown-eyed susans are profuse around the mountain right now, a shock of golden against the forest’s sea of green. It’s always the different thing that stands out, isn’t it? I find it easy to ignore that ocean of greenery, but my eye is caught by any shade of non-green.

Intellectually, I sometimes think I should spend more time noticing the details of the greenery, but I find that hard to do. I just can’t get excited by a leaf that looks the same as its neighbor. But if that leaf is red or yellow or blue…it’s a different story.

I find Brown-eyed susans especially easy to like. They usually bloom in clumps, so it’s not just a single flower or two. They are large, almost gaudy and the color is quite a contrast to the green leaves surrounding them. They are attractive to butterflies, too, making these wild patches a good place to scope out different species of them.

Someday, I’d like to have time to just sit in front of a good butterfly patch and spend a few hours watching them and seeing what species show up. That won’t be this week, unfortunately, but I’m still hoping for “some day.”