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Talk about what brings you happiness these days.

I'm usually an upbeat, happy person and feel lucky almost everyday to have a happy family, good friends, an interesting job, a nice house, a car that works, and to live where I do in the world. My optimism has certainly been tested since COVID began and like everyone else in the country, I've been experiencing a lot more downs than ups. I've tried to purposely spend time doing things that take my mind off all the crazy news and disordered state of our country and the world. One of these activities has been butterfly cocoon hatching. I had visited Magic Wings Butterfly Sanctuary in Deerfield Mass back in February, before the virus arrived here, and found out they sell native butterfly and beneficial insect cocoons for you to hatch and release at home. I started ordering them online in April and have hatched almost 20 this summer -- different varieties of Swallowtails, Luna moths, and Polyphemus moths. The photo I've uploaded is of one of the Spicebush Swallowtails -- after her wings had unfolded and pumped up, she crawled onto my hand and sat there for about 5 minutes before flying away. I garden with native plants and flowers in order to attract and support wildlife, jokingly referring to it as my "wildlife habitat" rather than my garden, but I was thrilled when she flew directly across my yard and landed on the Spicebush I had planted which, as her name implies, is one of the plants on which they lay eggs. Its been incredibly joyful to come down some mornings to find that another has hatched and I will soon get to release them into my garden. Its one of my happy projects! Of course not all of the cocoons are viable so that has been an important lesson too, that nature can be pretty cruel. About four of the moths and butterflies (out of the 20) seem unable to get out of their cocoons properly or their wings never fully open so they can't fly. I've read that for every viable cocoon there are several that aren't and will not hatch correctly -- Mother Nature's way of keeping down the butterfly and moth population I guess. I just wish she would apply the same logic to all the damn slugs who are munching on my garden plants every night! But my garden has been and remains one of my happy places and when it's not too hot I spend at least an hour or more after work each day in my garden -- watering, planting, weeding and deadheading. ...