Great Black Wasp Part II

How do they get in here? What do they want? I'm done with them! When they get in they rule the roost and everyone goes running. My honey saves the day.

I swear they have the biggest stingers in the whole entire world. For sure.

Oh How My Garden Grows....

I have begun to find huge peace in being outside. Weeding (rue the day, I thought it'd never come) brings me countless moments of solitude that I don't normally get. Pruning my flowers and bushes and watering once a day, finding any excuse to be outside near all of it. I love watching the flowers grow from seeds, taller and taller and then finally, a bud appears and you'd think someone was giving me a big fat present (well, they are....) because I get excited and giddy at the thought. I call over the poor Oldest and his Dad and they just stand there, staring, looking really hard for the exciting thing. When I look at them looking at IT, the beauty, I can see, it's lost on them. The Oldest tries really hard to show excitement and muster it up. He sees how happy I am and he feigns the same but I can see, he's almost grinning at trying so hard to be excited. Finally the other day he said to me, "Mom you're really into your flowers aren't you?" Hmmm. Well. Yes, I suppose I am.

So now I have Zinnia growing and they sprouted their first buds of flowers this morning. I have a ton of other things in the works and they are tiny baby seeds just sprouting. The Littlest helps me water them and we talk to them and he thinks its absolutely a blast that we are talking to baby plants. He loves it and laughes that we are talking to them. And when we water them we turn the flow down really low and water them just enough strength so not to blast them down and we talk in these baby baby voices and he thinks it's a hoot. Then that makes me smile and before you know it, we're all smiling, either genuinely or at one another. Smiling and laughing is infectious isn't it? It is.

I put some new Oriental Grass up by the mailbox. They won't stand up right. So I put a dowel in the middle of one of them and took some twine and tied them upright. Looks better but not natural now. Can't get it right. They are BEAUTIFUL. Can't stand the sight of weeds now.

When I was a young teenager my then best friend and I would spend literally all our time together. The summer was basically one thing after another after another. Her mom used to make her weed all the time. I thought it was absolutely ridiculous. We never weeded! What in the world? I thought it was a huge waste of time, we could be playing tennis or....playing tennis for that matter! Sometimes I would pitch in and weed with her and complain the whole time. Phew. It's hard to appreciate the silent wonderful gifts from God when you are a teenager who wants no responsibilites and play all the time. I mean really! These are things you have to learn and appreciate as an adult maybe; I'm not sure but in my case, it went down like that. Long winding road to appreciate such things for sure. Good Heavens, I couldn't even appreciate how my sister would want to change a room around four times in one month, she wore my butt OUT. I like things just the way they are, till I get my own gumption and idea. Don't tell me how to move it, what to do, what to say, what to wear, what to move, what to get, anything. Don't tell me what to do!

I love watching the snapdragons come to life and grow so vibrant and tall. It's almost synonomous with watching the boys do the same, in the same time and beat. I love watching the Hydranga bloom so full and blue and pale pink and gulping up the water by the bucket loads. The Lantana so bold and bright with their yellows and pinks constant through the summer. I can count on that if nothing else, that Lantana bush has bloomed so very full three summers in a row. Gorgeous and effervescant shooting from the ground in plumes of dark pinks and vivid yellows. Love it all. I think I stand out there and just fix it all and water it all and look at it all and maybe it's a control thing...but only a little. It's definitely a beauty thing. It definitely is that. My garden is not in one place in my yard, it's here and there and everywhere and it's growing every day and each season I add a new Perrenial or two and anticipate and wait so I can see and love how my garden grows. --Like the boys, it's adding this and fixing that and loving. Always loving.

The Beauty of God and Nature..The Wonder of It All..

As you all know, I very much relate flying things, mostly butterflys and even dragonflys with Lucas, my son who is now in Heaven. He's been there without us, without me, for almost five years now. That seems like a long time yet sometimes, it feels like moments ago. Then I look at the Littlest and realize, no, it's really been five years. To think, when Lucas died, I was adamant, no more children. We discussed, my husband and I, we discussed when Lucas was at CHOP for those two months, we whispered on the rare nights we were together in bed talking into the night, like best friends with stolen moments, we'd whisper that we couldn't do it again, didn't want to do it again. And he was still alive, struggling, and so sick. But still alive. Still alive and we were already talking about could we do it again. I suppose looking back, maybe that was a huge slap in the face to Lucas. Thank God he could not hear us. Thank God we never had those conversations in his room at the hospital. Of course not. I think at the end, it got too hard. It just got so hard that I was worn down watching him get worn down. I tried every day to hold my head up high, not see how completely overweight and out of control I was getting, my every emotion on a frazzled string about to break, and I read to him, sang to him, talked to him, every single day. Brushed his hair, put lotion on his skin, massaged him, tried his pacy, remember it all? I did. I fought so hard for him and made him fight hard too. Until we could see, we had no choice but to see, he was silently speaking to our eyes, he was ready, it was time. And he flew away to Heaven. Like a beautiful butterfly his soul took flight and now he comes back to us; like this.

This is something I captured in the front yard. That flower is the flower of a butterfly bush. Thanks Mom, Mindy and Val for that meaningful gift. Now they come to the front door all the time. This is just one I happened to be able to get on film; it seemed to be perfectly content for far too long there. The temptation to get the camera was too great. When I came back from inside, it was still there. Beautiful Lucas. Let me think it. The belief I have in that is intrinsically tied to my heart strings. Don't even think of bursting my bubble.

We are born, we live, we die. It's how we chose to live the moments we are given that will determine our forevers. I choose to cherish all things living, cherish family, cherish friends, cherish memories, and give back in small ways when possible. I think, if we live like that, and in the beauty of God's Grace, then the wonder will not be how we managed to live through this crazy life but rather how we chose to make the hard choices and do the right things even when the easy road seemed so tempting.

I chose life. I miss Lucas and I know I will see him again, without a shadow of a shadow of a doubt, but I chose life. Five years later, I can say that. Five years ago, notsomuch. Five years ago there was a therapist asking me if I wanted to do harm to myself and I found myself looking her in the eyes deadpan with no words. The truth in me? Yes. It was a truth that never escaped my lips and a truth I never let come to fruition. I imagined how many many times in that first year. I lay and look at that bathroom by my bed and knew how I could do it, but then I looked in the other direction and took the harder road. The road where I got up every day and did not hide away from the world. That road led me here. That road led me to take a picture of that beautiful butterfly. And I am just barely wise enough to know why. Just barely. Thank you Lord for that.

Jenn

Rabbits, Snakes, and Flowers; Oh My!

See that thing? Snakes again. Geesh. I couldn't get a pic of the whole thing, he was moving fast. I also couldn't get the setting on the camera right because I was 1) afraid to take my eyes off him 2) trying to keep my eye on the Littlest so HE didn't get him 3)he was moving too fast. Dammit, there was just too much going on in that moment. So, clearly you can see that he's not gargantuan but S.T.I.L.L. it's a SNAKE. Are you getting the heeby jeebies yet? Needless to say, this thing met it's untimely death about 2 minutes later when my hero hubby came round the calamatous corner weilding a big ole' shovel. Yeah, just let your imagination go with that one. Littlest and I retreated into the house before the guts started flying..Do the sign of the cross, go ahead, I've already asked for forgiveness on that one.

See that bunny? It's real. I think HE met HIS untimely death in our backyard last night. Not from one of us (come on, seriously, it's a BUNNY, we aren't killers for goodness sake) but whatever got him, got him good. There was fur and innards and what looked like the roof of a mouth laying in our back yard this afternoon. Nice flies buzzing too. YUCK! It was back in the area below our bedroom window but I can promise you I heard nothing last night. I was too busy sawing logs and must've been deep in it. For the record, we really DON'T live in a forrest. We aren't in the country people. There is a lakey thing, there are trees nearby and I have noticed an increase in the hawk population (love to watch them fly actually, very beautiful). This tells me, animal population around here thrives, and clearly, very clearly, it does. Phew.
These are some of the African Daisies I have in the front yard. Love them. LOVE them. They make me happy.
Here is where I de saturated some of the color. Love that too. Not quite black and white but barely color in the photo. I can't wait till I get the gumption up to print, mat, and frame all my flower and nature stuff. I'm still collecting thankyouverymuch. ;)

Phew. Lions and tigers and bears oh my. But round here it's rabbits and snakes and flowers oh my.

GN!

PS I'm watching a repeat of Michael Moore on Larry King; up way too late "doing things" (Bean!). They're getting me all riled up on politics for this late hour. Need to turn that mess off. I hear it enough in the day hours.....ya think?

Pure Nature

I love capturing beauty. Often things that aren't even 'pretty' are the most beautiful. You have to have your eyes open for it. These are all truly just natural beauty and that is always appealing and calms me. In the biggest way. My fav is the first one. It's an up close of Light Purple Phlox coming back up from last year. I can't wait till it spreads more in that flowerbed...