LIVE and LEARN: Special to Me

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Special to Me

After 9 months of snow,

my gardens are blooming in Breckenridge.

The back garden
-a wild affair-
shows red, white and blue
in time for July 4th.

The front yard is strewn with wildflowers.

Poppy and Forget Me Not
add a riot of color.

The swing is no longer buried under drifts of snow.

Relaxing with morning coffee
is once again possible.

Trails behind the house
beckon hikers.

The forests and streams provide endless
opportunity for learning and play.

Wildflowers peek from the undergrowth

to offer their fragile beauty.

Six year old Ben
practices carefully with the camera.

Candid shots are his specialty...

As if all these things aren't wonderful enough,

Wanda of Moments of Mine has mentioned me in her blog.

I want to thank her and tell her
how special she has made me feel.
When I visit Wanda's blog,
journeying down her curving lane
to read her uplifting posts,
I am right at home in her peaceful surroundings.

Though I don't feel as though I can accept an award,
I do want to accept Wanda's kindness and friendship.

Thank You Wanda for thinking of me!

14 comments:

EbieSunday, July 5, 2009 at 10:19:00 PM MDT
I love the patriotic garden, but I don;t see your poinsettias. There is so much beauty in your area and I love to try walk/hike the trail (puff, puff) hehehe! or share coffee while enjoying the views. Ben is going to be a good photographer! I visited Wanda's site and I have come across Ces' blog and she is a great artist. I have also read about her friend Bella. I used to blog hop before I started blogging. And frankly, you deserve the award. It is not the quantity but the quality you share with your post.
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Tammie LeeMonday, July 6, 2009 at 12:01:00 AM MDT
Such a lovely stroll through your life. So fun that you had red white and blue flowers in time for the 4th. Enjoy summer, each and every day!
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BernieMonday, July 6, 2009 at 12:01:00 AM MDT
Oh Barb, you so deserve that award, you are everything it represents.....love today's post as I am one who prefers wild flowers to all other flowers. That has always been a secret wish of of mine to have a beach house with a lawn of wild flowers.....take care my friend, as always.....:-) Hugs
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RebeccaMonday, July 6, 2009 at 4:18:00 AM MDT
The colors and patterns of your yards and trails are SO interesting. I'd love to take an hour or two and sit on that swing and listen to the sounds that must reverberate all around! I'd rather see the 4th of July colors than hear the 4th of July BOOMS anyday :)
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WandaMonday, July 6, 2009 at 4:57:00 AM MDT
You are welcome Barb...
Your wildflowers are very pleasing to the eye! I guess Ben took the photo of you...and I note everyone is still in a jacket...We have unusual cool temperatures here ourselves...the coolest since 1963.
Take care and enjoy your week!
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DianaMonday, July 6, 2009 at 6:55:00 AM MDT
Hi Barb,
It is very lovely where you live,thank you for letting me visit!
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GaelynMonday, July 6, 2009 at 7:04:00 AM MDT
So patriotic. Your flowers provide a wonderful burst of colors. Love the forest trails.
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KBMonday, July 6, 2009 at 7:36:00 AM MDT
Your flowers are amazing - truly beautiful. All the rain here in CO has made the wildflowers go wild! I arrived home to the Front Range after nearly 2 weeks away, and I almost didn't recognize my home. Summer is finally here.

BTW, trail riding to Georgia Pass on a weekday is so peaceful and wonderful, assuming that you avoid the storms by starting very early. We did get storms almost every day that we camped up high but hid in our vehicle for protection from the lightning. What an amazing world we live in!
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Calm EnergyMonday, July 6, 2009 at 12:04:00 PM MDT
HI Barb!
I also really enjoy your blog...
I have it listed as a special site to visit in a "private family book club blog."
It's wonderful finding beautiful photos with your quiet thoughts and comments.
Thank you for sharing your creativity with all of us!
Maria
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fourwindsphotojournalMonday, July 6, 2009 at 3:11:00 PM MDT
That my kind of garden. My back field is full of wildflowers right now, and I have to say, they are my favorite.

Cute children and beautiful flowers, what more could you want?
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Quiet PathsMonday, July 6, 2009 at 3:16:00 PM MDT
This place offers such a priceless opportunity for your family and grand kids. What a gift! The narrative and the photos are wonderful.
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2sweetnsaxyTuesday, July 7, 2009 at 9:55:00 AM MDT
I really like the wildflowers. How pretty! To have so much of nature around you must be very calming. I walk out of my door and see the house next door. Just not the same thing at all. :-D
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amandaTuesday, July 7, 2009 at 8:43:00 PM MDT
Another lovely post I enjoyed it thoroughly.
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Laurie Brandriet KellerWednesday, July 8, 2009 at 8:03:00 AM MDT
I love the appreciation you have for everything around you. The shot of the wildflower reaching out is amazing. xoxo.
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Quotes for Living

The dangers of life are infinite, & safety is among them. Goethe

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness. -Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)

This above all: to thine own self be true, / And it must follow, as the night the day, / Thou canst not then be false to any man. -William Shakespeare, poet and dramatist (1564-1616)

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person. -William Somerset Maugham, writer (1874-1965)

Society is like a lawn, where every roughness is smoothed, every bramble eradicated, and where the eye is delighted by the smiling verdure of a velvet surface; he, however, who would study nature in its wildness and variety, must plunge into the forest, must explore the glen, must stem the torrent, and dare the precipice. -Washington Irving, writer (1783-1859)

"Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: 'Is this the condition that I feared?'" -Seneca (1 BC - AD 65)

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. - Albert Einstein

You get your intuition back when you make space for it, when you stop the chattering of the rational mind. The rational mind doesn’t nourish you. You assume that it gives you the truth, because the rational mind is the golden calf that this culture worships, but this is not true. Rationality squeezes out much that is rich and juicy and fascinating. - Anne Lamott, (Bird by Bird)

Lingering in Happiness by Mary Oliver

After rain after many days without rain, it stays cool, private and cleansed, under the trees, and the dampness there, married now to gravity, falls branch to branch, leaf to leaf, down to the ground where it will disappear--but not, of course, vanish except to our eyes. The roots of the oaks will have their share, and the white threads of the grasses, and the cushion of moss; a few drops, round as pearls, will enter the mole's tunnel; and soon so many small stones, buried for a thousand years, will feel themselves being touched.

Wisdom from Others:

The secret of good writing is to say an old thing in a new way or a new thing in an old way. -Richard Harding Davis, journalist and author (1864-1916)

Words are the small change of thought.
-Jules Renard, writer (1864-1910)

The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
-Marcel Proust, novelist (1871-1922)

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.
-Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease.
-John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.
~John Muir, 1913, in L.M. Wolfe, ed., John Muir, John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir, 1938

On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.
-Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

THE THING IS by Ellen Bass

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.

"The Thing Is" by Ellen Bass, from Mules of Love.

The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Mindful

Every day

I see or hear

something

that more or less

kills me

with delight,

that leaves me

like a needle

in the haystack

of light.

It was what I was born for -

to look, to listen,

to lose myself

inside this soft world -

to instruct myself

over and over

in joy,

and acclamation.

Nor am I talking

about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,

the very extravagant -

but of the ordinary,

the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.

Oh, good scholar,

I say to myself,

how can you help

but grow wise

with such teachings

as these -

the untrimmable light

of the world,

the ocean's shine,

the prayers that are made

out of grass?

~ Mary Oliver ~

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LIfe at High Altitude in Colorado

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Special to Me

14 comments: