Chrysalis

Is there anything quite so lovely as a monarch butterfly's chrysalis? What a jewel!

That I saw this thing at all is completely amazing. We have made a mowed path along the side of the hayfield above our house which we use to walk through the field to the top of the hill where the dirt road - Chapel Spring Lane - turns off from the main road. We were about halfway up the hill - in the field - and I was marvelling at all the butterflies on the dogbane that has sprung back up and is having a second bloom after the field was cut a month (?) or more ago. We came to a spot where there is milkweed on the side of the path next to the wooded verge that separates the field from the road at that point and I was looking at it to see if I could spot any monarch caterpillars. Then as we walked past that milkweed my eyes just glanced over the grass/hay to my left and was caught - BAM - by this chrysalis. It could be the only one in the field, or one of hundreds that I'll never see - who knows? But anyway, I managed to again on the way back down the field - although it took me a while - and now I think I can find it when we walk again. I'd like to be able to keep an eye on it.