These wild irises aren't waiting for the party to start because they are the party.  They have been blooming, fading, blooming, fading for the past several weeks.  Show me a swamp, and I will show you sunshine and life marching to the beat of painted turtle time measured by a blue heron guarding the movements of beaver creating a perch for Canada geese tired of playing hide-and-seek with snapping turtles.  This is life, and this is the party.