Being painfully aware that this blog lacks actual color of late, I have decided to share an occasional picture from my garden this year. As God will be responsible for any picture I take, I must give Him attribution. I’m just holding a phone sorta steady and clicking on an icon. Some of you may have wondered where so many of the pictures that once graced the scribbling here went. I decided to ditch many of them because they hadn’t the proper attribution. In any case, I know all the places where one can get free pictures for a blog post if I want one but many of my recent posts are more about colorful words than pictures.
This grouping of flowers reminded me of these verses from my favorite sermon:
27 “And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? 28 And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, 29 yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.”
By the way, the only contribution I made to what is in the picture was the dividing of crocus roots last year.
I know these colors will clash with my header, but I hope it’s not too unbearable. (Maybe it’s time for the old header to go!)
Chris Reimers
Wings of the Wind 
When it comes to the colors of nature I think there’s never a “clash” – the more the better! (Besides the petals are the same shape as the butterfly wings – so there’s a lovely synergy!) Lovely to get a little insight into your garden Chris – lucky you – the crocus are lovely!! Best wishes, always, Linda 🙂
The more I look at this the more I agree with you about the clashing. How can anything clash with that picture? I also appreciate you noticing the (completely accidental) synergy.
Thank you for your kind words, Linda.
God’s blessings and best wish wishes…
Chris
Keep being your colorful self! 🙂
Thanks! It’s the new me but I promise I won’t get carried away.
Baby steps lead to full strides – you never know, getting carried away with color might be just the shout of joy you need in life at the moment!
Maybe so, Linda, though I did have another blogger friend remind me the other day of a song we used to sing years ago in my church youth group that is based on Philippians 4:4 which talks about “Rejoicing in the Lord always.” I’ve been humming that as a result. So maybe the color idea resulted from that but I can’t say for sure. In any case, everyone needs joy in their life to balance the realities of the crazy world we live in. Joy is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit and I’ll take all of that that I can get!
Thank you again for your kind words.
By the way, I didn’t get a chance to talk to my daughter today but I’ll be sure to tomorrow. She had a doctor’s appointment that was miles away.
No rush – she might not want to hear about all the medical stuff (I did my best to ignore my migraines for years… but then that deliberate avoidance came back to bite me when I got so much sicker!) have a wonderful weekend!
Thanks for the beautiful Spring preview! It’ll still be awhile before we see such things here in Western New York.
You’re welcome, Tom. It has been in or near the 70s’ here for the past week or so and things are taking off. I’m thinking we may have one of those really hot summers but you never know. I’ve got to get my burning done before it gets too warm. I’ve burned four or five substantial wood/bamboo/pieces of tree piles so far and I’m going to try and get in 2 more burns when the evenings get cool. I cut down several trees this winter and have 1 more left to go. That will add to the last pile I burn. We have been dry here so I’ve had to water some things. It sounds like I’m on 5 acres but it’s really only about 1 1/2 acres and it keeps me busy. We had an unusually heavy bunch of ice that kept the kids out of school for a week. That seemed to help the blueberry bushes but we’ll see how that turns out. We will soon have lots of pollen in the air so I’m trying to get the major stuff done now.
I hope the sun comes out and warms things up there so that you can start doing the things you usually do in the spring.
I hope you have a good day there today, Tom.
The description of your chores gets me champing at the bit to get outside myself. But it will be at least a month. Thanks and have a good rest of your day, Chris!
Another month? Surely you can prepare tools or something to be ready when the snow is gone. Then again, I see you are getting some serious lows so it might be safer to wait until things warm up. Our summers are usually very loooooooooooooooooong so the fact that things are warming up this early makes me think it could be longer than usual. I guess I’ll have to wait and see. Thank you for the kind words, Tom, and I hope you have a good rest of your day as well!
Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.
You’re welcome and thank you for your comment.
Always a pleasure.
Thank you.
About colours clashing or not clashing: I’ve noticed that different greens always seem all right together, even if some verge towards yellow and others towards blue. I think that is because they all occur in wild mix in nature, and so perhaps our senses are adapted to perceiving that as harmonious.
The weather: Here in Oslo it’s probably a bit like what Tom says about New York. Norway stretches from about 58˚ – 71˚ north and New York is further south, but we have the Gulf Stream running north all along the coast, keeping the climate fairly temperate. The sea: the great moderator. But we certainly can’t beat Arkansas. There are still lots of patches of snow here and even in a sunny corner of my garden there are not yet blue anemones or snowdrops.
PS: Why change the wings? – they look fresh and quite exotic still!
Hi Marianne. Thank you for these observations. I appreciate them and I really appreciate your last comment. There may be some who associate this blog with the butterflies at the top so I’m going to keep them as I’ve had them so long. My enjoyment of the little creatures has not diminished one iota. And if I was making a decision based on color alone, the header matches all of the stuff on the right side of the blog.
Your comment about colors clashing is thought provoking. The natural growth of things in the wild never seem to clash no matter what colors are mixed together.
I am certainly not surprised by the weather there in Oslo. Hopefully, you will have some of those early things popping up there pretty soon. Arkansas may have many places beat when it comes to longer summers but we only have a limited number of really nice days, depending on the year, because the heat and humidity here is so oppressive. We are already starting to see a good bit of pollen which seems earlier than usual. The pollen gets very thick here so people with respiratory problems have issues. I’m still washing pollen off of things from past years. I have always thought that the population in Arkansas is low partly as a result of the long summers. Without air conditioning, it would be difficult for some to make it through a summer here. I will say that the Northwest part of the state continues to increase in population.
https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/local/northwest-arkansas/northwest-arkansas-by-the-numbers-shooting-up/527-69bccc39-213b-45b5-a1d7-10ab64067e54
Arkansas is called the Natural State for a reason. For those who enjoy outdoor activities like biking, boating, and hiking there are lots of different places to go. At the same time, one won’t find many out hiking when the weather gets so humid.
Flowers go with anything, Chris. Wink and just saying. 🙂
Written like a true flower lover!
I was talking to my wife about “clashing” because I have never paid much attention to fashion. She has informed me that there is almost no such thing as “clashing” today when it comes to fashion. I wouldn’t know as I’m usually a decade behind if concerned at all about such things.
Of course, flowers are wearing the clothes that God gave them so how can they go wrong?
Anyway, I remember back in the mid 80s’ when bell bottoms were way out of style. I don’t know how I found them but they were all I would wear because I liked them. My wife and I were teaching at the same school and the eighth grade girls that I taught used to laugh at my bell bottoms mostly behind my back. They were good kids. They used to talk to my wife about bringing me up to speed style wise.
Months into the school year, my wife did some shopping and bought me some pants with straight legs. They fit so I put them on and wore them to school. When I arrived at school, I thought those girls were going to have a medical problem because they were so emotional. I have really never understood how something like that could mean so much to certain people. Those girls were so happy for me that I had entered the correct timeframe. It is interesting that one of those students went on to have a career in modeling and I check in on her Facebook page every so often to see if they are planning another get together. That group of kids from the mid-80s still get together once in awhile and I still have good memories from the years I spent there.
Anyway, in my world I would still consider that there is such a thing as clashing. I suppose I am, as usual, behind the times.
Thank you for stopping by, Sue.
Just after I had written my comment (above), there were more crocuses: they said in the weather forecast on tv that the temperatures on our west coast had come up to 15˚ today, and they showed crocuses and the ‘county bird’ of Rogaland in the south-west, the Northern Lapwing, which is migratory and has returned from its winter quarters, probably in north Africa. – – Life is getting lighter. As you can guess, many of our popular, folksy songs have text about the wonders of spring.
How nice is that, Marianne? Maybe you guys will get an early beginning to Spring as well.
I looked up the Northern Lapwing and he is one distinguished looking fellow. I also saw that:
“…it rarely wanders to eastern Canada or the northeastern United States. Such strays usually occur singly, but on a few occasions, major winter storms have brought small invasions.”
It looks just like it is described at a bird site:
“Northern Lapwings’ upper parts are metallic and glossy green.”
In one of the pictures I saw there were other colors mixing with the green to give it almost a rainbow effect.
I did look up a couple of Norwegian songs about Spring and they are lovely. The first one is very folk sounding as is the last one which is quite old and very interesting I think:
Beautiful flower and powerful point
Thank you, Pastor Jim.
🙂
Lovely photo, Chris. We look forward to beautiful colorful flowers as Spring approaches. Nothing like it after a long cold winter. I remember those days when we lived up north.
Thank you, Cathy. We had more ice than ever this year and things are really blooming. I’ve got more blooms on my blueberries than I’ve ever had and I’m pretty sure it’s because things were cold longer than usual.
Love the splash of color, and love the verse–it is one of my favorites too–and one I particularly like to turn to, when I’m feeling anxious. 🙂 Thank you Chris!
You’re welcome, Katie. God’s creation is amazing and His Word is amazing, too! Thank you for stopping by! 😊