death of the dragonflies

I like dragonflies. They're pretty to see and I associate them with the ponds of my childhood hikes with my mom, watching the dragonflies darting from lily pad to lily pad, so I have fond memories of them.

Last week I was the first one in at the store, and sitting on my desk was a large dragonfly. Dead. Freaked me out for a moment, and it was a couple minutes before I could get myself to pick him up (I'm weird about dead things) and move him so I could work.

A couple days later, I saw another one on the floor between the bikes. I steeled myself (dead!) and picked him up and carried him to my office to sit beside the first one.

And this afternoon, our maintenance guy walked up to me and held out his hand. A third (dead!!) dragonfly for my burgeoning collection. It's cooled off a little here - is that why they're suddenly dying all over the place? We've lived up here almost 5 years and never had dead! dragonflies in the showroom before. Very odd.

But it's a treat to be able to study them so closely. Look at the structure of their wings. How different their tails are from one another. The colors. The shapes. The delicacy. Nature is fascinating.