A Writing Habit: Step One – Get Out of Inertia

I’m going to attempt a not-quite-daily writing habit here this summer. It may be a few paragraphs, maybe just a few sentences, but the goal is to write more here which will hopefully lead to more writing outside of this blog. I miss the days when I could sit down and jot down a few paragraphs no matter how messy they were, just to share whatever thoughts were coming my way or to share a few quick photos. Somehow I got bogged down into my trip reports and well, you see how well that has gone as I’ve just abandoned sharing them because it seems like such a task to complete.

So, I’m writing. Or trying to.

Back in April we were out in Angelina National Forest and there were several zebra swallowtails puddling along the muddy bottom next to a pitcher plant bog. One of them came to try to suck the salts out of the straps from my backpack and it was one of those few minutes where the butterflies are distracted enough by their search for salts that will let you paparazzi them to your hearts content. I wish they would frequent our yard but we are just a few counties too far west for them to be any kind of frequent resident. The furthest west one I have seen was over at Huntsville State Park, though someone has a sighting on iNaturalist of one over in Luling/Lockhart which is really far west!

Now, I haven’t seen all of the butterflies in the world but I would put them in my top ten of southeastern US butterflies. Such glorious beings that we get to witness as they bounce through our southern forests!