The Scenic Route

When we would get loaded into the car to go most any place my Dad would ask if we wanted to take "The Scenic Route". We always clamoured for the scenic route~other wise we would just drive straight to our destination. And where I ask you is the fun in that?!
Needless to say every time we were given the choice it was the scenic route...
As one of the results I have watched for-or thought about this particular water fall every year for as long as I can remember.
It only runs in the Spring, from the snow melt run off. There is a general time of year, but no known time or day it will start to run. Or for that matter when it will stop.
It has caused flooding that has moved headstones from a nearby cemetery, stopped school from being held and traffic from crossing its path, it has also barely trickled.
It's sound is wonderful and even the air around it is cooler because of the spray.
Far above it if you look close and fast, you can see the "upper falls" that feed it.
This part being man made-I'm convinced it was built shortly after land was invented-I mean even my Grandpa remembered it from when he was a little boy!!!

The high way runs past it, but with the free way having been built when I was a teen-ager, it takes most of the traffic down past the Bay and so, sadly, many of the people never even know it's there.

Had they taken the scenic route they could have enjoyed this...

I would encourage you to take the Scenic Route as often as you can...

Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it!

My Flag story

Please allow me tell you a story this fine day...
It is a story of my yellow Iris'~My flags.

Last year about this time I took my trusty little canon and ventured out for a walk around my town. It was to be a clothes line picture day. You see I love clothes lines....I'm sure I have told you in earlier blogs about this.
So, as I was trudging along admiring peoples clothes lines, wind chimes and flowers. The plush green lawns and crisp clean front porches...

It just so happened that a light breeze came along at just the right moment and I could smell the most wonderfully light fragrance.

Being the bright person I am, I knew it was floral.

But who's?!

And where were they?!

And What kind were they?!

It just so happened that fragrance was not in my memory, but it was simply Divine!!!

I stopped in my track's and started to look around...there were no flower's to speak of in sight, except for some yellow Flags across the street and down about two houses. In the front parking strip of a very old house~

But Flags don't smell.

The breeze picked up again and I inhaled deeply and I had to cross the street to those yellow flags!!!

Sure enough!!

It was the Flags I could smell!!

I could have stood there all day enjoying them.

I could not get them out of my mind~I wondered how long they had been there?
Who was it that planted them~and enjoyed them? Was it one of the old Scandinavian women who emigrated to this town so long ago? Did she bring them with her from some other place?

I had to go ask if I could buy a start of them. I had to try.

So loading my gloves and shovel in the trunk of my car in hopes that the answer was yes. I set off.

When I arrived there was a young woman out in the yard, I got out of the car and walked over to make my request.

She smiled very warmly and told me I could have them all, they were going to be torn out in a few day's anyway.
She brought around a hose to them so they would be easier to dig up, and we visited while we waited. She took me around the house and showed me her strawberry patch and told me she had been picking them non-stop and asked if I would like some.

What?! Flowers AND strawberries?! Yes!

So we picked an ice cream bucket full of warm fresh strawberries and then filled another 2 with fragrant yellow Flag tuber's...
I drove home a very happy beggar indeed!

I was a little concerned about taking them from the shade and putting them into a very hot sunny spot in my yard...
They struggled in the adjustment and I worried until this Spring if they would indeed survive.

To my delight they are happy in there new home~just see!!!

I walk out every night and every morning to smell them, and give thanks for the breeze that came up to blow the sweet fragrance my direction, for the woman who planted them in the yard, and the woman who gave them to me with a bucket of warm strawberries...

Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come a live and go do it!

Encourage each other and may God bless

A Spring Bouquet

I love Spring time when the fruit tree's are covered with flower's!



I love the bright Green of new leaves on tree's and bushes!



I love the same tree's and flower's that have been loved by the women who mean so much to me...



I was so happy when Honey asked me to take this picture that his Gramma loved so much~

the view from her living room window.

It was a view that she loved so much~Honey spent a lot of time with her when he was young and he came to love it too~as have I.





When I was little I always thought these flower's were planted by the Fairies...

they were all over the back yard lawn~I would pick them to my heart's content and take them to Mom who always loved them.


Aunt Mert showed my daughter one day when she was very young how to gently open a Bleeding Heart blossom to reveal the lady sitting in her bath tub...I was as amazed as my daughter was~Aunt Mert's Gramma had shown her how to find the lady when she was a little girl and now I think of that story every time I see the Bleeding Heart blossom's...

This is the pie cherry tree that was planted by Honey's Grampa Pehrson, and sits at the edge of the garden~it's fruit's have been enjoyed by 6 generations of his family.

Honey's Mom asked me to take some picture's of the tree for her and she and Aunt Mert told us stories that they have gathered through the year's of picking and bottling cherries from this same tree...

We are all looking forward to bottling this year's crop and enjoying pie's from the tree that has been loved for many reason's...

This is the Sweet Almond tree that my Mom planted in the front yard to replace the one that was planted by my Grandpa for his bride~It stood as a sentinel near the front door until a storm that was to strong for it came along.

It was so much a part of our lives that when the old one had to be removed, the same day a new one was planted.

So at least 4 generations of women from my family have loved to see the Almond blossom's each year~

Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it!

Encourage each other and may God Bless.

imagination...

Limitations live in our minds. But if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless.

I have been known to have quite an imagination.
And more often than I'd like to admit, an over active imagination once or twice.
I love to imagine, it is to to me, what helps me be able to love life. Give it humor and bright spots, limitlessness and endless possibilities!



I am lucky to see imagination in every day~not just with myself, but with one of my Grandchildren...
A cupboard may really be a hiding place that no one can see...


A bed? Not at all~A trampoline ...

And never under estimate the wonder of mirror's, wings and pulling faces...

Hats, Cradles and baby doll's.

Or is it something much, much more?!

Maybe it's a really good place to hide during a game of hide and seek...

What ever she chooses it to be~I'm sure glad Honey built a couple...

And I'm sure glad imagination is alive and well!!!

Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it!

Encourage each other and may God bless