No wonder...

Down below the porch, past the 'snow in summer'...

 something lovely is happening...

...the water lilies have begun to bloom!

I started with 1 plant about 7 years ago and each year a few more blooms come on...

...this year I've already counted 9 more buds plus these 3 that are in bloom...

I got right down to water level to see if I could find any frogs but didn't see any today.

What I did see was the feathery fronds of parrot weed...

Loads of honey bees loving the floating roots of one of the pond plants...

...and then I spotted this...

Do you know what it is?

Here, have a closer look...

This is the casing of a dragon fly nymph.

They can take 1 - 3 tears to hatch out of the water, climb up onto a leaf stalk

and slowly emerge out of this strange looking case.

It's called 'incomplete metamorphasis'.

They skip the pupa stage and go from egg, to nymph to adult.

Then they dazzle us all summer with their air acrobats on the iridescent wings of a fairy.

Isn't nature simply amazing!?

I wish I had seen it emerging.

Anyway back to the beautiful lilies...

It's no wonder artists have been smitten to paint these lovelies for thousands of years!

Of course some of the most famous...

Claude Monet.

Shizhizhang.

Chinese Painting

Limoges platter.

This is one of my favorite images of all time...a painting by Charles Courtney Curran 1888...

So get out the paints, pastels or in my case, the camera!

Consider, the lilies!