Colors of the Rainbow

Today was a very colorful day as I visited a place called Hope Furnace.  Hope Furnace is a historic site where people nearly a century ago would smelt iron ore.  Adjacent to the site is a swamp and stream, which if you go far enough eventually attaches to Lake Hope.

I guess I find it a little ironic that I saw the colors of the rainbow today (or near to it) at a site that is largely covered by water.  Afterall, God's promise that he would never flood the earth again is manifested by the rainbow.

The colors of the rainbow are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.  Representing those colors are the red of the Cardinal Flower, the orange of the Sleepy Orange butterfly (the upper wing surface is very orange!), the yellow of the Wingstem (complete with bumble bee!), the green of the not yet ripened Sensitive Fern sporophyll, the blue of the Monkey Flower, and the indigo/violet of the Purple Fringeless Orchid.  I threw in the pink Sweet Water Lily just for fun!

In all honesty, I didn't realize I had all these great colors today until I started looking over my photos tonite. I have to wonder how many really interesting things I miss because my mind is instead on hurrying to get home, or the fact that I forgot to stop at the post office this morning, or that my knee hurts.  I need to do a better job of clearing all that other garbage out of mind, and focusing on the beauty that God has give us.  Do you need to do the same?!

Praising God part 2

The larva that fell from the sky!

Rhododendron

Here a few weeks back I posted Praising God, where I talked about some of my favorite sounds in Creation.  The other day I took my children to Rhododendron Cove south of Lancaster, specifically with the objective of photographing Rhododendron for my One Thousand Flowers project.

As I photographed the beautiful, white-flowered shrub, my children sat down on the moss covered ground and patiently waited for me.  As they sat, a caterpillar fell out of the sky and landed on my son's pants leg.  Actually, I suspect it was a sawfly larva rather than a butterfly caterpillar.  But anyways, I looked up, curious what kind of tree the critter had fallen from.

Above rose a fairly large tree, perhaps 40 feet tall, with toothed, pointy leaves and smooth bark.  Well, there are several different tree species in southern Ohio that fit that description.  The one way to tell for sure was to scratch a twig and smell it.  And when I smelled the scratched twig, I was reminded of one of my favorite smells in Creation, that of Sweet Birch.  Sweet Birch has a very strong wintergreen smell.  I need to research if it is safe to chew on the twigs, because if it tastes like it smells, the flavor would be heavenly.

Out west, my favorite smell was the smell of an approaching rain storm.  In Arizona, as the Creosote bush gets wet it releases a very distinct smell.  The smell is then carried ahead of the storm.  So when one smelled creosote, you knew rain was on the way.  Not only is creosote an appealing smell, it also carried an uplifting message.  While in Ohio we sometimes loathe the rain, especially when it falls everyday for three weeks in a row like it has recently, in Arizona, rain is rejoiced.  The smell of creosote meant something wonderful was about to happen.

What are your favorite smells from Creation?  If you do not have a favorite smell, then you probably need to spend more time in Creation!