Colleen Cavanaugh: Precious offspring in my Yard
Male black swallowtail butterfly
The soft cooing of a mourning dove greets me. My eyes open as light slips between the slats of the blinds. The room brightens. The cats playfully pounce on my feet as I try to burrow deeper under the blanket. If I don’t feed them soon, their attacks will grow in ferocity, so I bound out of bed.
Throwing on my favorite jeans and a blue and white flannel shirt, I walk to the kitchen and feed Ollie and Lilly, finally appeasing their relentless mewing. As they eat, I pour a cup of steaming coffee into my to-go mug and I happily march outside to my garden.
“See you later, cats,” I call.
My coffee is hot and a little bitter, but that doesn’t matter. The sky is brightening. With a relaxed sigh, I bend over and peek at emerging seedlings. As I shamelessly congratulate myself on each garden victory, I am gleefully chattering aloud. Thankfully, only the birds can hear me. This is my spring ritual.
Later in the day, I carefully guide a young rosemary seedling into a fiery red pot, introduce a sage plant to a mustard yellow pot with green horizontal stripes, and tuck a delicate-leafed thyme into a brightly patterned blue and white checkered pot. I then sprinkle dill seeds into the soil of an old jade green pot that I found buried in a corner in my shed.
I happily arrange the haphazard pot display just outside the vegetable garden along the wooden fence. The juxtaposed colored pattern, a virtual 3-D representation of a Mondrian painting, seems to bounce and shout in the sun, beckoning the warm rays to join in a dance of photosynthesis. I am proud of my herb garden. The rosemary, sage and thyme come to life.
The dill flourishes — ethereal with its green fronds creating an intricate blanket of lace.
Over the years I have obsessively collected more pots than I needed through yard sales, gifts from friends and serendipitous purchases. Their bright colors, assurances of fertility promotion and promises of culinary conquests still seduce me.
This morning, during my habitual inspection, I spot several small, wiggling insects crawling among the dill. The closer I get and the more intensely I peer, the more green worms I see crawling. Concerned that these invaders would ravage my dill, I pluck a few out and squish them.
A day or two later at a community farm where I volunteer, I mention my new find to my friend Sheila. I often seek her help with my gardening questions.
“Sheila, I found dark green worms all over my dill this morning. I’m not sure what they are but they’re voraciously eating my dill.”
Sheila quietly shifts her focus to me from the tomatoes she is planting, raising her bushy, caterpillar-like gray eyebrows in consternation.
“Those are probably larvae of the black swallowtail butterfly,” she says matter of factly.
I am mortified but also relieved that I had not disclosed the details of my heartless killing spree to Sheila. I know this species of butterfly, whose males have exquisite black wings with small yellow and blue markings. My gardens have always been blessed with the flurry of monarchs and black swallowtails filling the sky. It’s a sight I rejoice in, and now I am saddened by my carelessness .
Returning home, I dutifully rush to the dill pot and carefully examine the remaining caterpillars. It’s as if a veil has been lifted and only now can I truly see the intricate markings of these enchanting insects. They are adorned with black, green, yellow and white horizontal stripes.
Fortunately, many are still crawling on, and chomping at, the dill. Over the next few days, I monitor them closely and am amazed at how quickly they grow but at the same time, a little saddened by how rapidly my dill is diminishing. My luscious dill is now a pot of spindly, naked stalks. Still, I feel protective of the caterpillars. I count them daily and am heartbroken when I realize their numbers are dwindling.
I diligently research the black swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes) and discover it also eats parsley. Apparently the larvae and caterpillars consume the greens of the Apiaceae family, which include carrots, dill and parsley.
And so, as the dill disappears, I gently pick up each caterpillar and transport it reverentially across the garden to my bed of parsley, placing each of them on a different parsley leaf or stem. I perform this parade of salvation many times, coaxing the caterpillars in a quiet, soothing voice, confident that I could save their population.
“Come with me, little Baxter.”
“Wait until you see what I have for you, sweet Penny.”
“Oh yes, my little Katie. You will be so happy.”
I named each of them, hoping that my silly anthropomorphic greetings will encourage their survival. I am more than eager to share my parsley with them, especially if this sacrifice could save my new friends.
However, over the next several days, the parsley remains untouched. The caterpillars continue to disappear and soon there are none.
Over the next month, the garden flourishes. Neighbors stop to comment on the beautiful allium and iris in the spring. The scent of lavender soon fills the air. Roses and clematis climb rickety trellises. I have planted many pollinators and native plants so that the bee and butterfly populations grow exponentially. rickety trellises.
In August, the dahlias start to bloom, and so there is an additional exuberance of color emerging along the driveway.
One day in early September, on a return trip from the grocery store, I notice a small black swallowtail on the driveway. I hurriedly place my grocery bags down and rush over to examine the tiny insect. It is barely moving its wings. I know it is injured. I gently pick it up and place it amongst a bed of zinnias. I can only hope that it will survive.
Later in the day, when I return to the yard to search for the butterfly. I find it motionless. Its beautiful wings lie still in the garden. I gingerly cradle its lifeless form and carry it to my study. Every day I open the small wooden jewelry box I have placed it in.
I wondered if the butterfly remembered me and had returned home to die.
Maybe it was one of the caterpillars I had transported across the yard with my silly, affectionate whispers. Maybe it was Penny or Katie. Now it is an integral part of the story of my home. Over time, its color fades, its fragile wings fall apart and one day I cannot find it.
The following spring, I plant butterfly weed, Joe Pye weed, ironweed and many other perennials I know butterflies are attracted to. In the summer, when I sit quietly in my Adirondack chair in the middle of my garden, I can see beautiful monarchs and swallowtails, hovering over flowers, drinking nectar and filling my home with their beauty. Each year the garden grows larger, colors are more vibrant and I see the gently beating wings of the precious offspring of the Baxters, Katies and Pennys from years ago.
Colleen Cavanaugh, of Bristol, R.I., is a obstetrician and gynecologist in private practice, a writer and a former ballet dancer. She recently completed her first novel, Astral Ballerinas.
Colleen Cavanaugh © 2025