This is my youngest daughter Billie Jo and her daughters, Velvet Rose and Carole Lyne.

We have had such a mild winter here in Central Texas that it feels like spring out.  I keep having to remind myself it is January. I was daydreaming about picking fresh tomatoes and I remembered something that happened last summer. 

 Velvet Rose is an avid gardener.  She is  my best little helper.  We were in the garden picking tomatoes and peppers.  I was on one side, but had sent her to a different side of the garden.  The bumble bee's were thick where I was at ( they were after my cinnamon basil plant). Our bumble bees are not aggressive, but to be on the safe side I was keeping Velvet Rose away from them. All the sudden she got very excited and called to me, "Grandma, come quick and see this beautiful caterpillar, he's so big and pretty, what kind of butterfly is he going to be?"

She had found my worst nightmare!  A big fat green tomato horn-worm. Yuck, gives me the shivers just thinking about it. But Velvet had seen it through her young and innocent eyes. To her it was a lovely creation of God. 

I explained to her that it was not going to be a butterfly at all, it was just going to eat up our garden.  Then I quietly  disposed of it.

But I learned to look at things in a different light.  Through the eyes of a happy little girl on a warm summer afternoon.