The Hunt for One More Yellow Flower

Yellow Flower #30

Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul. (Luther Burbank)

If you follow the conversation on my Facebook page, you know I've been posting yellow flowers. I started around the first of May when I spotted a pretty little mystery yellow flower. A mystery because I didn't know the flower's name. So I posted its picture and several chimed in to name it. Trouble is, some named it one thing and some another. But it was fun anyway. 

So when the next day I spotted another little unnamed yellow flower on my walk, I posted it. And I asked if anybody wanted to guess how many days straight I could find a different yellow flower. I thought if I made it a dozen days, that would be good. But the 12th day came and I stumbled across a new flower. And again on the 13th, 14th and on until I got to 30. Most were wild flowers, but some were in my flower beds and one in my sister's. A couple were at greenhouses. One was spotted at church. A few showed up in North and South Carolina when I traveled down that way. But most were spotted in our hay fields and pastures. Some I found in my flower books or on the internet and named. Some I didn't. Some my Facebook friends named for me. Some remained a mystery. 



And then came today and I went in search of elusive yellow flower #31. I went across fields of daisies and grass up past my knees. No new yellow flowers.

I went into the woods and braved the poison ivy and blackberry vines and spider webs. Tried not to think about snakes. Everything lush and green, but no yellow flowers. 

I walked past the thistles but spotted no yellow on their pesky blooms. Not even a Goldfinch that might have posed for a touch of yellow on the thistle blooms that make the seed the little birds love so well. 

Oscar waited patiently while I searched. But although I saw hundreds, perhaps thousands of yellow blooms in the hop clover and daisies and various other yellow flowers that I had already counted and posted in my 30 flower days, I found no new yellow flower. But that's okay. All good things must come to an end and the Black-eyed Susan up top made a great #30 to end the string of yellow flowers. 

Tune in next week to see how I'm going to try to somehow make a giveaway contest out of my collection of yellow flower pictures. Meanwhile, thanks for going on my yellow flower hunt with me. Hope it made you smile. 

What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable. (Joseph Addison)

Spotted on My Walks through Nature's Garden

There are always flowers for those who want to see them. (Henri Matisse)

I usually take a walk every day if at all possible. My dog, Oscar, would be disappointed if we didn't, although on some of the hotter days in summer, he sometimes looks at me as if he thinks I might have lost my mind wanting to walk when it's 90 degrees in the shade. Actually I try not to walk when it's that hot unless I can keep to the shade. Not for me, but for him. His black fur coat is hot.

But I love spotting gifts of nature when I walk. A couple of days ago, I found this beautiful pink flower. One stalk with all these blooms. No others anywhere around. I've never seen one like it before. It looks like a flower that belongs in a cultivated flower bed, but there it was on the edge of the hayfield in nature's big, wild garden. I haven't tried to look it up. Maybe one of you will recognize it and give it a name. 

I enjoy walking in Nature's garden. There are weeds too and sticktights or what some of you call beggar lice. You hear the whine of a mosquito now and again and flies can be worrisome when you get around the cows. But always there are sights to see and things to spot when I take a walk. 

I like sharing some of the things I spot on my Facebook page. It's like taking my friends for a walk with me. So tonight I'm asking you to walk along and see what we can spot. 

 

I always keep an eye out for flowers. The daisies are a favorite. They bloom with such determination and so cheerfully. It doesn't matter if I pick a few to pluck the petals. Another will pop up in its place. Tiny, more delicate looking flowers scatter color through the grasses.

 

 

 

Sometimes the blooms are small but so plentiful they carpet the whole field 

 

 

Then Kentucky's state flower, the goldenrod lights up the summer with color.

And among all the flowers are the butterflies. Beauty on wing.


Hope you enjoyed walking with me and spotting a few of the things along the way.

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today. (Dale Carnegie)

If You Had Your Life to Live Over

"If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies." (Nadine Stair)

Have you ever thought about what you might do differently if you had your life to live over? Or maybe what you want to do in the days you have left? 

One time at a writers' retreat we were challenged to dream big and set goals for ourselves. What did we want to happen in the year ahead in our writing careers? I came up with a couple of big dreams. Neither thing happened that year or since. They are still dreams. 

Then, when I think about having over twenty-five of my books published, that would have been a really big dream for me when I started writing many years ago. But now sometimes I look back and wonder if I could have done this or that differently. Perhaps written more books or better books. At the same time, I feel blessed that I have been able to write some stories that have kept people reading. To have created some characters readers have invited into their hearts. 

We lost one of our church people this week. He had a good long life, but his family will miss him. Attending a funeral can make a person think about her own numbered days and wonder. Am I taking advantage of the blessings the Lord has showered down on me? What would I go back in time and do differently if I could? Would I lie in the grass and not worry about chiggers while I celebrated spring? Would I plant more flowers and eat more strawberries straight from the vine? Would I make more time away from my keyboard for family and friends? Would I take more time to listen and use less time talking? Would I cherish the moments and not rush the days? 

Regrets are useless. We can't go back. We can only live forward. Perhaps the thing we all need to do most is look around and enjoy the journey. 

What would you do differently if you could live your life over?

Decisions, Decisions

"He loves me; he love me not."

Decisions, decisions! When you were a kid, did you ever pluck the petals of a daisy one by one with the "he loves me, he loves me not" chant? I did. Most of the time I didn't have anybody in mind to love me or not love me. I was too young for a real boyfriend, but even so it was fun to play the game. And an easy way to make a decision. Of course, it was also easy to just grab another daisy and give it another try if the daisy decided he didn't love you.

Then there was the eeny, meeny, miny moe, catch a monkey by the toe, my mother told me to pick this one way to decide things. Kids learned to fudge on that one pretty fast too by adding another line or two to make the decision come out the way they wanted. All that makes you wonder why you didn't just decide to begin with.

I was indecisive this morning. I wavered between attending my own church where we were having a fellowship dinner or going to the church where my husband's gospel group was singing. Had great reasons to go both places. Finally put off making the decision so long that I didn't really have a choice any longer and only time to do one of them. Guess that was my way of deciding.

A writer has to make a lot of decisions. You have to decide what you're writing. Nonfiction or fiction? Mystery or romance or a dozen other possibilities? Who are you writing about? If it's fiction, you have to decide on names, places, personalities, a zillion things about your characters. What do they look like? What do they do? What troubles are you going to thrown down in their paths? And that's just scratching the surface of the decisions you're going to have to make. 

Sometimes I waver while I'm writing. Should my character do this or do that? What would he or she really do? And that's the question I need to concentrate on when I have decisions to make while writing. What would my character really do? If my character has properly come to life in my head, then the story decision can get made and the story told. One thing I've never had to do and that's pluck a daisy to see if he loves her or loves her not. That's one thing I usually know when I start writing - even if my character isn't all that sure when he starts down the story road.

I love seeing daisies out in the field. It's like they're waving happy smiling faces at me and telling me that if I need them, they're always willing to sacrifice a few petals to help me know if he loves me or loves me not. :o)!

Did you ever pluck the petals of a daisy or make a decision with eeny, meeny, miny, moe?