The Lesson of the Dandelion

And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:12 (NKJ)

Some time ago, I had the idea of writing a devotional book about things I saw in nature on my walks around the farm. I stalled after coming up with maybe a dozen devotionals and put the project on the shelf. But a few of them,including this one, can be found on my website. I decided to share this one here because a couple of weeks ago I posted a picture of a yellow wildflower I had spotted on my walk. That led to another little yellow flower picture and it became a game to see how many days I could spot a different new yellow flower on my walks. I'm up to flower number 16 and until today, I hadn't admitted spotting that yellow dandelion. But now it's the dandelion's day. So that's why I'm posting what I imagine God might have thought after he created the dandelion. 

The Lesson of the Dandelion

   God made the dandelion and said, "It is good. This plant is tough but has a bloom like a spot of sun to make my children smile. It is plentiful so they can eat the leaves and still never lack for flowers." 

He smiled when the seed ball popped up. "Yes, my little children will have fun with that, and look at all the fresh seeds for my songbirds weary from the winter. Yes, it is good."

Ah, the dandelion, that common yellow flower that blooms from spring to fall and even sometimes in the dead of winter after a few days of sunshine. This spring was a particularly good dandelion season. For a while all the lawns and fields were dotted with their sunspots. The roar of lawnmowers soon followed, but dandelions know when to duck their heads so that the next day they can push their white fluffy seed balls high into the air to cover the lawns like snow. It's not hard to imagine God smiling when His little children run out to free the seeds to the wind or when the birds enjoy the springtime feast or when mothers receive wilted bouquets of the blooms from small warm fists. Love in its purest form. 

Yet has there ever been any other plant that more money or labor has been spent attempting to eradicate? We poison it, chop it, dig it out by the roots, and still the dandelion not only survives, but flourishes.

The early Christians had that same staying power as the world tried to destroy them, but they put their trust in Jesus and would not be conquered. They kept spreading the seed of the Good News around the world. 

Are we sunspots of God's love in whatever place we're planted? Do we share the seeds of our faith with those who need nourishment after a hard winter? Do we remember the children to be sure the message is always carried on? Does God look down at what we’re doing and say, "Yes, it is good?"

Remember the Honor Mom Giveaway

A comment with a way to contact you gets you an entry in the giveaway for a chance to win the NKJ study Bible and a copy of one of my books. Another winner will get the set of Rosey Corner books. See the details on my website.

Thanks for reading.

One Last Flower for the Name the Flower Giveaway

Name the Flower Game is Almost Over

All good things must come to an end, they say, and I suppose that goes for fun with wildflowers in a Name the Flower game too. This is the last wildflower for you to guess or to name to get an entry in the drawing for a couple of books. The winner's choice of one of my books and a grab bag book. 

Here are some of the choices. All great reads. I'll pick three winners on Sunday. So get your guesses in on the new flower or go back and name any of the other flowers from past posts if you haven't already done so. Each guess on a different flower gets you another entry to maybe win your choice of some of these books. 

A New Flower to Name

But back to flowers. The one up top is the one to name. I remember when I first found these down by the creek. I thought maybe there was something wrong with them since to my eye they looked a little wilted. But when I came home that day and searched through my flower book, I found a picture of the flower that looked exactly like the ones I'd seen. So do you recognize the new flower? If you don't, what would you call it if you got the privilege of naming the plant? 

Now What in the World was Last Week's Flower?

I picked some different flowers for you all to see and name in the last few weeks. Nobody who left a comment came up with the actual name of this little flower. A few of you gave it a tri-something name because of its cute little three petal like things. That sounds really scientific, doesn't it? 

It's Wild Ginger. My son asked me if it was really what ginger

came from and no, it's not. However, Native Americans and early settlers did harvest the root, dry it and grind it into a powder to use as a spice. Some settlers also cooked the root in sugar water for several days to get a ginger-flavored candied root and then used the leftover liquid as a syrup. But since then, scientists have found the plants may contain poisonous compounds, so they strongly advise against eating the root now. It was also used as a poultice on woods and has since been found to contain some antibiotic compounds. 

The flower has an unusual story of how it attracts small flies that come out of the ground in the early spring looking for carcasses of animals that didn't survive the winter. The flower is close to the ground where it is easy for the flies to find and the color of the flower is similar to decomposing flesh. It's unsure whether the flies pollinate the flowers, but the insects do crawl into the flowers to escape the chilly spring weather. That may be more that you wanted to know about Wild Ginger, but in case it's not, you can read even more about this interesting wildflower at a USDA Forest Service site here. That's where I found the information about the flower.

So Now It's Time to Name the New Flower

Your turn now to leave a comment about the new flower or about the old flower. All comments are welcome and if you also leave a way to be contacted (if you haven't previously left that information with a guess on an earlier Name the Flower post) then you'll get an entry in the giveaway. 

As always, thanks for reading and I hope you've enjoyed the Name the Flower game.

Can You Name that Flower?

 New Flower to Name

We're coming down to the homestretch on my Name the Flower contest. Some of you have guessed every post or almost every post and so got your name thrown in my giveaway hat numerous times. We'll see if that helps your luck next Sunday when I pick the three winners. But before that, you have time to guess on two more flowers. The one on this post and one on Wednesday's post to come. It's fun when you come up with the actual common name for the flower, but it's also fun when you don't know and make a stab at giving the flower a fitting name. 


Not sure whether you'll know this Sunday's flower or not. It's another in the unusual flower category the way squawroot was. This one looks more like a flower but sometimes you have to search for that bloom. So do you know its name or do you want to come up with your own name for it? Either way you can get a chance on winning one of my books and a grab bag book by a different author as well. An "I don't know" comment gets you an entry too. I picked out some possibilities for those other books you might win last week. All great books. 

Last Post's Flower

Several of you got last week's flower right and then some of you didn't. A few of you found a new name for it. The flower is a Bent Trillium. The bent part is what makes it so hard to get a good picture. The Bent Trilliums along my wildflower walking trail grow up on a cliff side, so that helps me point the camera under the leaves. Of course the steep cliffs don't make it too easy to get close to the flower to take a picture. 

Here's a white one that very obligingly forgot to bend its head the way it was supposed to and bloomed more on top the leaves than down under. The flower of this species usually nods beneath the leaves. My Kentucky flower book says most Bent Trilliums are white, but on my cliff the colors are about evenly mixed between white and the maroon color of last post's picture. Then there are a few that are about halfway between, a faded purplish white. The middle of the flower is always white. 

Time to Think Flower Names

So what do you think? Got a name? I hope you are enjoying sharing some of my favorite wildflowers. And if you leave any kind of comment here, that puts your name in the drawing for the book prizes. You must be 18 to enter and you need to leave some way to contact you should you be one of the three winners. Print books USA & Canada. E-book prizes international. Deadline for entries April 18 at midnight EST.

E-Book Deal for $1.99 or Less Still Going On

Angel Sister is on e-book sale this month. Here's one of the 100 plus reviews. "Didn't want to stop reading it.. very appropriate for every age and gender." You can take a reading visit to Rosey Corner and get to know my Merritt family for less that 2 bucks at your favorite e-book site. The book was featured today of BookBub that sends out a newsletter about free or low price books every day and that always boosts a book. Angel Sister is now number one in several categories of sales on Amazon. That's fun. Thanks to all of you who may have downloaded it to help it hit those number ones. 

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #381 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

• #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Religious & Inspirational Fiction > Christian > Historical
• #1 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Literature & Fiction > Historical
• #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Historical Fiction > Religious

As always thanks for dropping by. Name That Flower and get an entry in my giveaway. 

And if you're in the Bowling Green, Kentucky area, I'll be at the Southern Kentucky Book Fest on Saturday signing books and taking part in a panel on writing in the afternoon. Would love to see you there.

Another Flower to Name, Another Chance to Win

A new flower for my Name the Flower giveaway game

As I'm sure you've been able to tell the last couple of weeks, I really enjoy wildflowers and taking pictures of them. I used to have to consider each picture back when I used film cameras. But with digital cameras, I can go wild and take more and more pictures even if I know I've taken pictures of that same flower last year and the year before. I guess I think maybe this year's picture will be even better. And it's sort of like bringing the flowers home with me.

I've taken numerous pictures of this post's new flower. It's not an easy flower to capture. But it is lovely. I'm sure some of you will know what it is. You can name it the actual flower name or come up with a new name for it. Both are fun and either way will get you an entry into my giveaway. Each guess on a new flower gets you a new entry to maybe win a couple of books. 

The Big Reveal of Last Post's Flower

Nobody gave the flower book name for Sunday's flower, but some of you did come up with interesting and fitting names.  There was Nutty Buddy, Coral Pinecone, Seaweed, Pomegranate Fern, Underwater Fern, Seaweed, and more. 

The common name for this unusual flower is Squawroot. It's also called Cancerroot and is in the Broomrape family. Another name for it is Bear Cone. That sort of goes with the pine cone suggestion, doesn't it? But the Bear Cone name comes from the fact that bear, as well as other mammals, do eat the stalks and seeds and then spread the seeds in their feces.

Squawroot contains no chlorophyll and must obtain its nutrients as a parasitic plant. The plant attaches primarily to oak tree roots but rarely harms the host tree. The squawroot seedlings grow underground for approximately four years. I'm beginning to think I was fortunate to ever catch sight of this odd flower. After four years, it sends up its scaly, flowering stems. I don't remember noticing them having an odor when I found them but the information I found online said they produced a scent that fell somewhere between carrion and cabbage. 

The reason the flowers are called squawroot is their medicinal qualities. Native American women used them as a treatment for menopause symptoms. It was also used for bleeding in the bowel and uterus and for headaches. 

Besides being a folk medicine, squawroot can be consumed as a food. The above ground stalks may be eaten directly or dried to brew tea. Somehow with the way they said the plant smelled, I'm not getting a yearning for that tea.

Name the Flower Game

So now you can name the new flower and throw your name in my giveaway hat to win your choice of one of my books and another grab bag book. I'll pick three winners on April 19, so get your entries in by midnight April 18. More details on my Events page. 

E-Book Sale

Angel Sister continues to be on e-book sale for $1.99, but today only, Thursday (04-09-15), you can also download my first Heart of Hollyhill book, Scent of Lilacs, at your favorite e-book site for 99 cents or less. 
Amazon 
Barnes & Noble
Christianbook.com


As always, thanks for dropping by. I hope you enjoyed the flower that didn't look that much like a flower. This week's flower is definitely a flower.

Flower #4 to Guess or Name - Some Flowers are Just Different

What would you name this?

 Are you tired of flowers yet? I hope not, but in case you were thinking all flowers look alike, here's a new one for you to name that definitely doesn't fit the pretty flower in a vase image. Of course, most wildflowers are meant to decorate the woods and hillsides and don't fare too well picked for bouquets on the table. Before Mom died, I did pick some of the most plentiful varieties to take to Mom so she could enjoy the blooms she always liked seeing when she was still able to hike to the area where our wildflowers grow. But it's a long walk from there back to my house and I was fortunate to make it with most of the petals still intact. 

So what would you call our new flower this week? You might know it's actual name or if you don't or even if you do, what would you name it if you were the first to see this flower? Or would you even know it was a flower?

Last Week's Flower

Purple Phacelia

Here's another photo of last week's flower. One person named it correctly when she saw it on my Facebook page. It's a purple phacelia. It's a widespread wild flower here in KY and frequent in woods and especially in deep leafmold on rocky slopes and ledges. Exactly the kind of place where I found the flowers and took these photos. In last week's picture the flower is growing out between the rocks of a ledge. 

Wild Geranium

Several of you called it wild geranium and I must admit that's what I've always thought it was. But then I searched my flower book to be sure I had the right name for this Name the Flower contest and took note of the leaves. That's when I found the correct name. There are also wild geranium on my hills and ledges, but the leaves are not the same and the blooms don't have as much of a noticeable white center or as long stamens. Leaves are always a big help in identifying wildflowers and in locating them too. 

Name the Flower

So now you can name the flower and have a new entry in my Name the Flower Contest. I'm picking three winners on April 19, 2015 and those winners will get their choice of one of my books and a grab bag book of another Christian author. Not big prizes but sometimes the fun is in playing the game.

Hoping you had a happy and blessed Easter weekend. I can't wait to see what imaginative name some of you will surely come up with for the name of this post's unusual looking flower.








  

Time for a Spring Contest - Name the Flower

Spring is Here

Hey, did you notice? It's SPRING! The calendar says so. Now if some of us can get Mother Nature to go along with the calendar, we'll be happy. Here things are beginning to look and sound like spring. The spring peepers are in full voice at night and in the morning, the birds are singing their spring songs. I haven't heard a mockingbird yet, but he'll show up soon. Maybe the mockingbirds are scouting out a new nest location and building their new home. 

A First Wildflower

I did actually see my first wildflower today. The flower up above wasn't it, but I did post its picture on my Facebook page. Usually that first flower is a dandelion, but so far I haven't spotted one of those. If you've read my book, The Blessed, you might remember how my character Lacey did a spring dance every year when she saw her first dandelion. Some springs it was harder for her to do that happy dance than other springs. 

Name the Flower Contest

But seeing the first little wildflower of spring gave me an idea for a new giveaway contest. This one won't be very hard, but I hope you'll have fun with it. Name the flower. As always, you don't have to be right. You just have to give it a try (and leave your e-mail so I can contact you should you be a winner.) That said, I know all of you will get all the flower names. Still, even if it isn't a hard to guess contest like some of my mystery puzzles, (well, some of them were hard to guess) maybe it will still be fun. 

Prizes

The prizes are guess what? Aww, you did guess. Books!! I'll draw three winners. And every time you name a new flower, you'll get a new entry. So be sure to come back and check on the next flower every new blog post. That's usually Wednesdays and Sundays if I don't forget what day it is. That has happened. :) The winners will get their choice of one of my books and a grab bag book by a different Christian author. I have several autographed books that I need to give away and some others that aren't signed but the story is still good. I'll figure out which ones are up for grabs and let you know in one of my posts. That's besides my books. You can check out which of mine you might like to read by checking the titles out on my website. There are sample chapters and more there on all my inspirational fiction books. 

The contest is open to USA and Canada for print books and e-books for international entries. That international postage is prohibitive. You must be 18 to enter. Deadline for entries is April 18, 2015 at 12 midnight EST. I'll announce the winners here on April 19. 

Get Ready, Set, Go

So I'm ready to hear what you know about this flower. For years I called it the wrong thing. Oh, and if you don't know the real name or even if you do, another fun thing to do is pretend you were the first person to ever see this flower and that you got to name it. So what would you have called it? 

Remember to leave a way to contact you if you want to be in the running to win a book. I can't respond directly to your comments. 

The Breaths of Nature

After all, I don’t see why I am always asking for private, individual, selfish miracles when every year there are miracles like white dogwood. ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh


Every year I love walking to an area on our farm to see some of those miracles of nature. I've already shared a few of the photos I took on my Facebook page. I just took my phone camera because I didn't really plan to go wildflower hunting when I started out. But the day was glorious. It was Easter, but my family had visited the day before and what better day to give yourself the gift of nature than on Easter. Hunting flowers was better than hunting candy filled Easter eggs. At least, for me. I'm sure my grandkids would have disagreed. :)

So, Oscar and I, along with the two little neighbor dogs, took a hike down the cliff. I found flowers alongside the creek bubbling over rocks. The sun glittered off the clear water and rocks. The dogs didn't pay much attention to the flowers, but they did enjoy all the interesting creature smells and dipping into the water for a cool down now and again. I managed not to dip more than my hands and an occasionally clumsy foot into the creek.

The human spirit needs places where nature has not been rearranged by the hand of man. ~Author Unknown

That's the kind of place this is. Not an easy place to get to, but one that renews my spirit. And I did find flowers. Trilliums, larkspur, bluebells, rue anemone, yellow violets, bellwort, Dutchman's breeches, woods' poppy, squirrel corn, ginger root, Jack-in-a-pulpit, and more. And then I went a little nuts and even took one of those selfies. The creek and me. :) The surprise is that I didn't delete it.

 Every time I get to walk down to the creek or on any of my walks, I feel blessed to still go hiking and to see the gifts of nature that abound all around us. 

You don't have to hike down into wilderness areas to see gifts of nature. They're all around us. The sun shining down through new leaves. Birds singing in the trees. Dandelions making sunspots in the grass. What gifts of nature do you love most?
 
Happiness flutters in the air whilst we rest among the breaths of nature. ~Kelly Sheaffer

Imagining Life's Coming Attractions

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on. (Robert Frost) 

I love spring. A time when the spring peepers make music so loud that even with the windows closed I can hear them trying to convince some other peepers to be their dates. I like how one week the trees are winter bare and then a couple of weeks later leaves are waving in the breeze. I like how flowers start popping up out of the ground like magic as soon as the sun begins to warm the ground and then seem to grow tall overnight. 

I especially like those flowers that no one planted. That are just there. The wildflowers Mother Nature herself sowed in the woods and fields. Every year they show up again. Sometimes they spread out into bigger patches. Sometimes they shrink back and cling tightly to their little bit of earth and wait for a better year. But they keep blooming without fail. Flowers like the Dutchman's Breeches up above. 

They seem to be proof that, as Robert Frost says, life goes on. And if you look at my picture really closely, you'll see that even as I was taking that photograph, life was going on. A spider, that I surely didn't even notice, was building a web and using one of the blooms as an anchor post. It was paying me no mind. I was paying it no mind. We were just each in our own spring mode.

Life is going on in my work in progress too, but sometimes it seems to be still frozen in the winter of my mind instead of springing forth in the right words. 


Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions. (Albert Einstein)


That's where my story is. In my imagination and I'm trying to tell it so that you might make it come to life in your imagination. While Albert Einstein isn't talking about fictional lives, the same can hold true for my characters. If I can imagine it, I can preview their lives' coming attractions. But I have to write it moment by moment or more aptly, scene by scene. Each scene has to flow into the next until the story is told. Because even in a fictional story, life goes on. My story might succeed if I can pull out the right succession of moments.

Life is a succession of moments, to live each one is to succeed. (Corita Kent)

In real life, we can't pick and choose among the moments that make up our stories. We have to live the ones that come to us. But we sometimes can preview our lives by imagining what is to come. 

When I was a kid, I imagined myself married and a mother. I remember the moment when I looked forward to that life with a certain surety. Then I also imagined myself a writer. With a dog by my side. Lots of things have happened that I didn't know to imagine, but those things I imagined true. 

What are some of the things you've imagined that have come to pass in your life?   

Thanks for reading. Check back Sunday for a real treat. I'm having a guest post from someone who writes about her grandmother's struggles with dementia. A beautiful story I know will touch your heart. 

Life is a succession of moments, to live each one is to succeed.

Corita Kent

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/coritakent162489.html#DvO4Gp26V52g3WGr.99

Life is a succession of moments, to live each one is to succeed.

Corita Kent

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/coritakent162489.html#DvO4Gp26V52g3WGr.99

Mom's New Place

I haven't talked about Mom for awhile here. Not since I told you we were moving her into The Lantern, a memory care home for those with Alzheimer's or dementia problems. It's a very nice facility, bright and open, and the staff are kind and caring. 

Even so, it's been a difficult transition. The first week, we were in the ER twice because she fell, once at night and once late in the daytime. She had bruises and no major injuries. I cringed every time the phone rang, fearing another fall. But since then in almost two months now, we've made one more ER visit. Again, a fall in the night. Again, only bruises. 

Mom's a pretty tough cookie. But it could not have been that way. She could have been hurt worse, and that makes the falls a major guilty poke for my sister and me. We were watching her so closely at her house that we were right with her every time she sat up in bed. We had a bed alarm but after replacing it once at a high price, we just went with wind chimes tied to her walker. Then we placed the walker beside the bed so that she'd hit it and ring those "bells" when she tried to get up. The memory care home is not equipped for one on one observation at night. We signed numerous papers saying we were aware of that before Mom moved in. The workers do check on the residents periodically, but there's plenty of time in between checks for Mom to wake up and decide it's time to "go to school" or that somebody is "out front waiting for her." Or maybe just because she needs to "go."

There are other problems. She wouldn't eat at first. At home, she ate whatever we fixed, but once at the home, she wouldn't even look at the food on her plate. That is getting better. She eats breakfast now and dabbles with her other meals. Another problem, she doesn't like them giving her baths and helping her dress in the mornings. You have to realize where she is with this. At home, when I would tell her we needed to go get cleaned up, she'd tell me she just had a bath. In her mind, I'm sure she had. Sometimes I would have to talk for an hour before she'd come around to letting me help her bathe. The aides don't have the time to do that at the home. They have other residents to get ready for breakfast. So I understand the problem, but I know no solutions to suggest. The best help I had at her house was simply prayer that she'd be in a cooperative frame of mind.  

All's not bad though. Even though she wouldn't smile for me in the photo I snapped on Friday, she seems happier or more satisfied there than she was at her house. She still talks about "going home" to see her mother and father or that she needs to go cook supper for my dad. But she doesn't try to go out the door the way she did at home. I think because the place is bigger and the trip to the door is so far up the hallways, (and of course, locked if she did get to the door) she gets distracted easier. She thinks she'll have to wait until later. Plus, the other people there distract her too. 

There are residents at the home who are much younger and in better physical health than Mother and in better mental health too. Some of them wander a bit, walking to find an escape from the confusion that reigns in their minds. Others never say a word. One lady whispers everything and another lady sometimes stands in the corner and cries. 

In contrast, Mom has been chattering a mile a minute the last week. Nothing she says makes a lot of sense and she doesn't process what you say to her correctly. You say one thing and she thinks you've said something totally different. Makes for hard conversations. In this photo, she's telling me she has four of them - fingers, I think.

I haven't felt as if she's known me for a couple of weeks now. When an aide asked her if I was her daughter on Friday, she said no quite emphatically. But I am, whether she knows it or not. And she still smiles when she sees me. At least at first. Then sometimes she's ready for me to leave so that she can go home. After all, you can't leave company to do what you want. Innate hospitality forbids that. Maybe that's what keeps her satisfied in the big gathering room. 

My sister or I go see her almost every day. I'm not sure that's helping her, but it helps us. You see, it's not only Mom who has to adjust to the new arrangement, but us as well. Care taking is a demanding thing and it wraps tentacles of guilt around you when you come to the place where you think you can't do it any longer. 

But what we are continually reminding ourselves is that she wasn't happy at her house and she seems more content at the facility. There is the danger of falls. She is getting worse with her communication, but that could have happened at home too. The main thing for us to remember is that we love her and she loves us whether she's able to show that any more or not. 

She was a wonderful mother and I miss her. Those of you going through some of the same things with your loved ones understand what I mean when I say I miss her. Let's all lift up a prayer for those with this dreaded disease and for the families who have to watch their loved ones decline into a terrible world of confusion.

P.S. 

I took a walk back to my wildflower area today and was surprised to see a lot of the flowers blooming. The one above, Dutchman's Breeches, was always one of Mom's favorites. And I also saw my first snake! I think he was cold since he didn't slither away but let me step right past him on the path. 

  

Thanks to all of you who downloaded my book, Scent of Lilacs. It's going to be free for a while longer, so if you have e-reading friends, I hope you'll tell them about it. You can check my last blog post to see the links to the places where you can download the book. And you're always welcome to share my blog posts with any friends you think would like to read my ramblings. Thanks. You're the best.  

Color the World

A few years ago when my writing wasn't going so well, I was exploring new options. One of those was writing devotionals inspired by things out here on the farm. I thought if I could come up with one devotional per week, I could turn it into a Hiker's Devotional. Then my fiction writing began to get rolling again and I let the devotional idea slide into the background. However, I did write ten or twelve, and included a few of them on my website. The following is one of those. Hope you enjoy it.

Do you like wildflowers? I do. You might even go so far as to call me a wildflower nut, even when wildflower is no more than a nice word for a weed that just happens to have some kind of bloom. I like flowers of all kinds and even a tiny blossom in the grass that hardly looks important enough to have a name can stop me in my tracks for a closer look. 

One day a few springs ago, I was walking across our pasture field when I spotted a tiny blue bloom I hadn't noticed before. The flower was not as big around as a pencil eraser, and the four little petals were a delicate blue. The flower seemed to be lifting its head bravely out of the grass to reach for the sun. Yet because it was so small, its color was almost drowned out by the green of the grass blades.

Then when I stood up, I noticed there wasn't just one of these little flowers. There were hundreds of them. So many that when I looked across the field, the ground turned a hazy blue. 

 
As Christians we can sometimes feel like that small, insignificant flower thinking we can't make a difference in the world of grass blades around us. Yet if we open our lives to the "Son" we can make a difference no matter how small, and if we join together with all the other Christians in the world around us, we can change the color of the world.

Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. Let all that you do be done with love. I Corinthians 16:12-14 (NKJ)

Creeks, Cliffs and Wildflowers

Lots to do! Deadline zooming toward me for my work in progress and the words are coming slow. Chores need doing! New floor going down in the kitchen and bathroom and new room. New floors going down need everything moved off them! Not enough hours in the day.

Sometimes it's hard getting everything done since I have to spend so many hours sitting with Mom and trying to convince her she is home and doesn't need to head out the door to that home that is just beyond her view in her mixed up thoughts. That home she wants is long gone but so much more real in her mind these days than the home where she's been living for the last thirty years.

All this to say that sometimes a person just has to ignore all the have-to-dos and take some time for want-to-dos. So come go to the creek with me.

That's what I did Friday morning. I gave myself the gift of a couple of hours and forgot about the deadlines and chores. It's wildflower season at my creek and I feel cheated if I don't get a chance to admire the wildflowers there every year. So I said the chores can wait. The words might come easier after a little brain rest time. And I went walking. I didn't let Oscar go. He's still recuperating from his broken leg and surgery, but I didn't totally miss out on dog companionship on my hike. The short-legged little neighbor dog went with me. His name's Peanut Butter, but I nicknamed him P.B.

And I saw the wildflowers and heard the creek running. I spotted a Jack-in-the-pulpit, one of my favorites. I got a great picture of some shooting stars. I saw larkspur and buttercups. I took pictures of wood poppies and bent head trilliums, another of my favorites.

The creek was full from the recent rains with the water singing over the rocks. I got my feet wet and practiced my balance on the rocks. And then I climbed back up the steep hill, came home and headed to Mom's. It's good to give yourself a gift now and again. Especially in the spring when nature has given us the gift of beauty.  

What are some of your want-to-dos that make you happy when you give yourself that gift of time? Reading? Time with the grandkids? A favorite movie? Writing in a journal?

A Time and Season for All Things

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. - Ecclesiates 3:1 (KJV)

It's March 21, the second day of Spring by the calendar. Normally, this time of the year we're having windy and chilly days here in Kentucky with frosts at night and five different kinds of weather in the daytime. We can have sunshine, snow, rain and sleet all in the same hour in March and the winds can be cutting. Not this March. This March we're having a week long (so far) preview of June with record breaking temperatures in the eighties. The flowers are poking up out of the ground and going, "Oh my, I must have overslept!" And so, they are hurrying to catch up to the sun. 

I've never seen so many different kinds of wildflowers blooming this early in the year. The one above is a twin leaf flower and it is one of the earlier bloomers. But early as in April. Not the middle of March. Even my mom's favorite flower growing wild over at the Rock, the Dutchman's breeches, are blooming all over the hillsides. I saw a few that had bloomed and were already turning brown. Made me want to say wait a minute. It's not time for you to even be blooming yet and you're already fading.   

But the seasons come and go as they please. Whether we'll step back into winter, I don't know. It could happen. Generally we face a chance of frost here until May. But then generally we don't have a whole week of eighty degree weather in March. 

It's not only the early blooming flowers making me want to grasp a few days and try to slow things down. I got a titling questionnaire today for the book I'm working on. Not yet, I wanted to say. How can I think about titles when the story is still seeping into my writer's well? But it's time. To every thing there is a season. Now in the life of this book I'm writing, it is the season for titling. In publishing every thing has a time to get done. So, with some imagination and a great deal of hope, I will tell them about my story that is yet flowing out of my thoughts and through my fingers onto the computer screen. I will describe my main characters and the clothes they're wearing. I will suggest words that might make a title sing. And I will continue to write my story and hope the season for writing is as full of flowering thoughts as our early spring is of blooming flowers. 


What have you seen as an early sign of spring? Or perhaps it's still cold and snowy where you are. But spring will come. For every thing there is a season. And spring is a season many of us welcome.


Thanks for reading. I appreciate each and every one of you.

Wildflowers and Edits

I met an editing deadline yesterday. Actually I was almost two weeks early, but that other deadline for my Shaker 5 book is looming out there so I wanted to get the edits done as fast as possible. That way I can get going again on the Shaker book. I reread what I've already written or most of it today. Not bad, but I'm needing a brain surge to tell me what happens next. I like my characters, so that's a good thing. Maybe they'll whisper their plans for the rest of the story in my ear tonight while I sleep.

The book I finished editing is the one set in 1855 in Louisville. It's got lots of romance and some suspense and good helping of history. I think you readers will like my hero. He's very handsome and very in love with the heroine. We've struggled a little with the title for this one. I came up with Words of Fire. I still like that, but the publishers wanted something that sounded more romantic since this story teems with romance. So we've settled on Words Spoken True. What do you think? Does it make you think romance? They tell me the ideas for the cover are going to be fabulous. Anyway, I got the editor's suggested edits finished. Now I can get back to figuring out how to sneak a little romance into my Shaker village, Harmony Hill. Not exactly the easiest place to have a romance since the Shakers did not believe in romance at all.

But as a reward for getting the edits done and since we had a beautiful, sunshiny Sunday and I had to do something to take my mind off UK losing that ballgame, I decided to take a wildflower walk. I really didn't think that many of the wildflowers would be blooming since it had been so chilly all last week, but when I got over to Panther Rock where the wildflowers abound, they were blooming all over. There were the Dutchman's Breeches in the picture above. Those flowers do great over there and they are my mom's favorites. I don't normally pick wildflowers, but since there are scads of these and Mom loves them so much, I always pick a bloom to bring to show her. It's a good thing to see her smile.

But besides the Dutchman's Breeches, there were Woods Poppy, Twin Leaf, Bloodroot, Anemone, Spring Beauty, Yellow Trout Lilly, Sweet William, and others I need to look up in the flower book. I try to remember all the names, but I lose a few from year to year. It's such a treat for me to go see the flowers and I have the bonus of the sun glinting off the creek water as it flows past me. Today I had even more bonuses. I found a nest of some kind of animal in a hollow tree. Not sure what. And I didn't linger because I was afraid my dogs would come investigate and think the little creatures were supper. They could have easily gotten to them. Then I saw a huge crawdad. And a dozen wild turkeys. It was flower and wildlife day. I took pictures, but they never turn out as good as it looks when I'm right there in the middle of it all.

I'll have to go back in a week or so and see what else is blooming out. I'm sure to hit a knotty spot in my book and need to walk a while to give my brain time to figure it out. Writing isn't only done when your fingers are on the keyboard.

Do you like wildflowers? Well, here's wishing you "May all your weeds be wildflowers." Tell me about the wildflowers you love or how you reward yourself for getting something done.

Spring Passions - Wildflowers and Basketball

~~Spring has officially sprung. It's one of my four favorite seasons. That's narrowing it down, isn't it? Of course by the end of winter, spring is more than welcome and can definitely be a favorite time. The snow and cold of winter are all right for a short visit but this year winter out stayed its welcome. So spring was much anticipated by most of the folks I know. Some of them are designing their gardens. Some are painting and sprucing up with spring cleaning. Me, I'm watching basketball and planning to go wildflower hunting.

~~I grew up listening to Caywood Ledford doing the play by play on UK basketball and have been a fan ever since. Even before I was a teenager, I can remember sitting on the stairs next to the chimney that radiated a bit of heat with my ear up against my tiny transistor radio while everybody else in the family was watching t.v. Not me. I was seeing those ballplayers running up and down the court and cheering them on. Caywood's gone now and I have to listen to the national announcers on t.v. When we used to get our t.v. signal with the antenna, I'd turn the sound down on the t.v. and listen to the radio. I wish I could still do that, but now with the satellite the timing is too far off. It's just no fun hearing on the radio that the shot didn't go in before the ball leaves the player's hand and you're still trying to hope the ball through the net.

~~Some of you out there are probably thinking it's weird to get so caught up in March madness while some of the rest of you are no doubt cheering on your own favorite teams. But one thing sure basketfall fans always have something to talk about in March even if they're strangers.

~~My other springtime passion is hunting wildflowers in the woods on my farm. There is something special about those delicate blooms poking up through the layer of leaves on the forest floor or clinging to the rocks on the hillsides. It's like hope in bloom. Proof that life is good and joy can be found in the gifts of nature. I like taking pictures of the flowers and I'm glad for my digital camera now that means I can snap to my heart's content without having to print them all to see which ones are best. So it's almost time to lace up my shoes and go wildflower hunting.

~~Hope you are welcoming spring with joy and hope blooming in your hearts.