CMP Review 2025-08-22

August 22, 2025

I had the best day a couple of days ago.

I was heading out for a morning walk when my 4-year-old neighbour saw me and asked if I was going for a walk (yes, I was!) and if she could come with me (yes, she could!). She asked her parents and off we went for an informal nature ramble around the block, chatting about this and that. Along the way, we stopped to look at various flowering plants and weeds in ditches; we wandered around trees laden with crab apples, pears, and chokecherries; we stood and watched a row of trembling aspens quivering in the breeze; we stalked a few birds; we looked at the clouds; and we came home quite satisfied with our walk. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just the regular beauty of the everyday.

A few hours later I was sorting through some cut flowers, when I found this black swallowtail caterpillar, chomping happily on some greenery.

I picked up the stem and quickly ran outside with it to share my find with the neighbourhood children who were playing outside. I headed down the driveway, and who do I see running towards my house but my little 4-year-old friend, on her way to show me a find of her own! She was coming to show me this beautiful northern leopard frog. She was thrilled. (Her mom later told me she had been trying, unsuccessfully, to catch a frog all summer. So this was a doubly special moment!)

We stood in awe of both the frog and the caterpillar. We talked about what we were seeing. We looked more closely. We told each other the tale of where we had found them. We reveled in the beauty of these creatures for a few moments.

Then we went to release the frog in a nearby ditch. And we brought the caterpillar to the safety of a zinnia and parsley patch in my garden, hidden towards the bottom of the plants, to shelter it from the view of the birds.

All in all, a lovely time spent with an inquisitive little girl who loves nature and who has much to share about what she is seeing!

It really is true. The flowers are not new, but the children are!

I’m so blessed to be able to see these things anew, through the eyes of my precious little friend!

@antonella.f.greco