The Likes of Which We've Never Seen!

Since purchasing our place in the mountains there have been many times I've felt like a little girl again, as time and time again I am filled with such wonder and excitement over the views, creeks, waterfalls, and nature surrounding us in our neck of the NC Smokey Mountains.

On this special day, we saw the likes of which we've never seen!

You see, we purchased our fixer upper back in December and have every weekend since headed to the mountains to work on it, except for Christmas and weekends when we've had family birthdays to celebrate.  Over those many weekends we've enjoyed taking breaks here and there to enjoy the rushing creeks that border our property, watch the wildlife that strolls through and also to take notice of the trees and plants; I've shared much of these here.  We want to keep the creeks in view from the cabin but decided to wait for everything around us to bloom through all four seasons before deciding to remove anything.

There are two raised beds by the front creek and what began as small green shoots growing back in February, very slowly grew to be 4' tall by the end of May.  With still no idea of what was to become of them, we waited and waited, and by June there were finally a few red blooms and that's when we learned these are bee balm plants.

It was July before most of these fanciful red blooms began opening and we noticed that bees and hummingbirds liked them.  The flower is pretty, and we love bees and hummingbirds, but the bed blocks the creek so I planned on pulling up the plants and removing the raised beds once the flowers faded.

All that changed as we drove down the drive this past weekend.

We turned in the drive and made our way around the cabin and were in awe as we began seeing butterflies flying everywhere!  They were flying across our truck, throughout the front property and as we looked toward the bee balm we were utterly amazed!  The bee balm was swarming with hundreds of fluttering butterflies; it was truly a sight to behold.

Most were black swallowtail butterflies but there were yellow eastern tiger swallowtails and others too.

I took many videos trying to capture this magnificent sight and of course none came close to how amazing it is to see this in person, but they are beautiful to watch.

I wanted to share these two with you; one is farther away and one is up close.
(Some parts are a little shaky, sorry...but it does come into focus.
To view:  choose "YouTube" and then "theatre.") 

  

I hope you enjoyed the videos!  It was the likes of which we've never seen; truly God's handiwork!  I am glad waited for all things to bloom through each season as these plants will surely stay!

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

2 Corinthians 5:17

Follow along to see how our creekside mountain cabin fixer upper turns out...see it all right here.

Join us each Sunday evening for Amaze Me Monday...

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