Some Seeds are Trouble

Have you had fun guessing the seeds? This is the last one. I'll be drawing for the winners this weekend. Two winners or who knows? Maybe three. And remember you don't have to have the right guess to enter. Just say you don't know the way Gail and Annette did on Sunday's post. But some of you did guess my Sunday picture or at least came very close. The picture is of a Chinese chestnut from a tree in our yard. 

Somebody gave my husband the seed years ago and he decided to see if it would grow. It did. But I have to tell you it is NOT my favorite tree. It was okay for several years, but then it bloomed. Not good. Very not good! At the time we didn't have air conditioning and depended on an attic fan to cool out the house at night. Chinese chestnut blooms smell very bad, or at least ours does. That first year I thought some poor animal had crawled up under our bedroom window and died -- days ago!! I had to hold my breath walking through the yard. I went from the wonderful fragrance of lilacs to these. Not a good progression. 

For some reason, this year the blooms didn't smell as awful. Of course the last few years we've had the air conditioning and haven't had to have our windows open to the stinking fragrance. And it may have not bloomed as heavily as it did those earlier years. 

But that's not the only problem with this tree. The outer shells of the chestnut is neat, don't you think? Well, it is also very, very sticky, and it is almost impossible to pick one of them up without getting small needles in your fingers. When I first discovered this, my grandson was about two and running around barefoot in the yard. He got a foot full of these stickers. Impossible to see, but painful. So I picked up every one of the chestnuts and even the bits of the shells I could find and removed it from the yard. 

Still, every tree has its own special charms. I'm sure someday I'll figure out a charm for this one. In fact, I went online to look the tree up and in the pictures I found the trees did look charming. Maybe I need to give ours some fertilizer or something. 

I do have to note a couple of the great guesses. Loretta guessed hollyhocks and took me back to my childhood when I loved playing with hollyhock seeds. Not that they looked much like chestnuts, but it was still a fun memory. Ann guessed a burr thingy. That could cover a lot of burr seeds. :) And Amy had the fun guess of a caterpillar. If you squint your eyes and use your imagination, you can see that caterpillar and then you can think about how in some weird way the caterpillar might be considered a butterfly seed. LOL. 

Thank you all for guessing and making this mystery seed contest fun. This post's seeds might be easier for you. So what do you think? Do you know what the picture of seeds is this time? I can't wait to read your guesses. 

But while I'm waiting for you to read this, I'm going to go out on the deck and look at the ocean a while here in Monterey Bay where I've been at a writers' retreat. I need to hurry because the sun is going down and the day is fleeing. Tomorrow, I have to get on the airplane and fly home. Looking forward to being home again too and seeing my husband and taking Oscar for a walk. 

As always, thanks for reading.

One More Puzzling Picture

"Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle." (Lewis Carroll) 

So to twist the quote a bit, what in the world is it? Are you tired of mystery photos yet? I hope not. I thought I'd do one more to let you keep guessing to perhaps win that copy of the newly packaged Orchard of Hope. I think Jocie and Wes would have had fun guessing on these mystery pictures too. Maybe I'll let Jocie come up with some sort of puzzle for her Hollyhill Book of the Strange blog. Jocie likes puzzles. Did you see her post about Beatlemania. Do you remember that? I do. I never swooned or screamed, but I sure did like singing "I Want to Hold Your Hand." Not exactly the greatest song ever written, but it grabbed our attention, didn't it?











But here is the rest of the picture of last Wednesday's mystery photo. Several of you were right on the money with your caterpillar guesses. You even told me exactly what kind of caterpillar and that they were tomato horn worms that becomes a sphinx moth. The bubbles that I thought were so neat were actually deadly to the poor caterpillar according to the info Kathleen found for us. Here's the last bit to explain the bubbles. (Not sure about her source.) "Here's this handy tidbit, if needed: Find out what kind of bug you have: Is it a good bug or a bad bug? Keep a look out for little caterpillar/worm like pests and spray or squish them. The only exception that I can bring to mind would be a tomato hornworm (green caterpillar) -- if it has a bunch of bubbles on its back, it is infected by a beneficial wasp that will eliminate a few generations of the hornworms. Leave them. They are on the way out anyway." 

You readers teach me so much. But now let's see what you teach me about the mystery picture up top. Oh yeah, and I loved your guesses on the last one - garden hose, cabbage leaves, lime halves, cactus leaves.  You were using your imaginations. Thanks for giving it a try. 

If you want to be in the drawing for a copy of Orchard of Hope, just make a guess on the mystery photo or any comment will do. If you've already guessed on one of the other photos, you'll get an extra entry for guessing on this one too. I'll pick three winners on November 1. 

Butterfly Season

 

The butterfly's attractiveness derives not only from colors and symmetry: deeper motives contribute to it. We would not think them so beautiful if they did not fly, or if they flew straight and briskly like bees, or if they stung, or above all if they did not enact the perturbing mystery of metamorphosis: the latter assumes in our eyes the value of a badly decoded message, a symbol, a sign. ~Primo Levi

It's butterfly season in our hayfield and garden. I know the summer is over and fall is upon us, but the butterflies have been out in force these last few weeks as if they know time is short. There's much to be done in order to insure butterflies for a coming spring. My spirits always lift when I see that first butterfly in the spring. It will float down on a sunny day and promise that any cold snaps will be just that - snaps, gone quickly as spring gifts us with flowers and summer edges nearer. All summer the butterflies float around, doing what butterflies do. Scaring off the birds with the eyes painted on their wings or bright colors warning that they're not good to eat. 

And then comes the last days of summer and the fall flowers begin blooming with intoxicating butterfly odors. The butterflies begin to keep me company on my walks in the hayfields, fluttering up from the flowers I pass by to race ahead to a new bloom. Dozens of the little white and yellow butterflies. Could be those yellow ones are why they're called "butter"flies. Could be I wouldn't be so entranced with them if I had seen what they looked like a few weeks before they began to light up my walks with beauty. 

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly. ~ Richard Buckminster Fuller

Maybe that's a lesson for us. Maybe we all start out as caterpillars or at least have our caterpillar days. And then we surprise ourselves with a butterfly day.  "How does one become a butterfly?" she asked. "You must want to fly so much you are willing to give up being a caterpillar."

That doesn't sound so hard - to give up being a caterpillar - but how many of us cling to what we have and fear to try our wings?  

I hope the butterflies floating through your world in these last warm days of the season will lift your spirits and bring you smiles.

Remember, if you haven't already entered, you still have time to throw your name in my hat for my birthday giveaway. See details on my website by scrolling down to the bottom of the Home page or going to the News & Events page. Some nice prizes including a beautiful NIV Study Bible and of course some of my books, too.