Why I gotta make do what I make do

In the doctor's waiting room yesterday, I read a chapter from a book about a person trying to encourage a person with tuberculosis. She'd felt like giving up, but seeing the dried flowers gave her just the bit of extra energy she needed to keep going, she said. When this information came to light, of course more pressed flowers were made and sent whenever possible from then on!

On the way home, I wondered if I was seeing things--could that be a clump of pearlescent pink, orange, and purple dried flowers in the creek? But as I strained my eyes and looked more carefully, I realized it was the natural iridescence of the Japanese pigeon!

   

Altho' he wasn't thinking "TB", I saw a Eurasian coot (white-shield and partial-webbed bird) closer to the middle of the stream caring for its friend. After all, it stood guard while the friend preened.

We needed to say goodbye to the birdies and go home. I saw the rose-red hibiscus by the roadside but knew it was much too large to make anything with. (I have seen keyrings or bookmarks made with single hibiscus flower petals, however.) Maybe someday somebody will want me to make something like that for them too...

MY CAMERA MADE IT OUT

You thought I wasn't going to be posting as much? I thought so too. But I seem to have overdone it--duh--so found myself in bed this morning all sore with a dull headache. (OK, the "dull head" is something I was born with, but the sore muscles are DEFINITELY witness to good, honest work!)

Anyway, last week, when the temperatures went down at least a few hours in the early mornings, I had gone down to the river to look at some wildlife and not posted any of it due to all this other stuff going on, so here's a little bit:

I wanted to see if my favorite hibiscus was still where it was several years ago. The popular hibiscus is a large, bright, red one; I've fallen in love with a tiny, dainty one that hangs upside down with streaks of white, kinda looks like a tiny valentine for someone on walks, I think, not a healthy bloom to be plucked and placed behind the ear...IT WAS STILL THERE! On a future post, I want to tell you about Senchi, a friend I made there.

There were waterfowl here before...no Swamp Pigeon (only pretty pigeon on nearby post)...but I saw an egret! It had flown quite a ways from the congregating place downriver, I knew. An old poster told of hunt for a snapping turtle nearby, but all I could see in the river were little carp...wait...THAT WAS A TURTLE HEAD--THEY HADN'T CAUGHT IT YET!

"I kinda don't think they ever will," a yellow flower seemed to say. Flowers don't talk, I told myself, and looked again. It was a pretty dragonfly. Butterflies were still around, but most dragonflies were gone by Oct. "Please don't run away. You're so pretty! I thought you were a flower--one of those yellow spears!" I knew I'd get feverish if I didn't go home soon so headed back.

I'm going to have to start to learn the name for the wildlife I see everyday. The first photograph looks like tiny peaches, but I KNOW they're not. And the red flowers bloom all over the place, and I just call them "those red flowers" and Kinya knows which ones I'm talking about.

STARTLED PIGEON

On the way home from the park, a pigeon didn't see me crossing the street and came flying right overhead. For a while, we were staring at each other, so I asked if I could take its picture and pulled out my compact camera. It just stared at me, then after I got in my click flew away.

I was thinking about what it must've been like for John the Baptist to see, not a pigeon used to human beings, but a wild dove coming, not just overhead, but landing right on Jesus, then not just perching there for a momentary photo shoot but "remaining on him"!!!

"And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God." (John 1:33)

Oh--I happened to be doing some memory work there.