Consider-the-Lilies Web Gallery
Southern Sundrops
As I sit at my computer preparing the images for this new room, I can hear the rap-a-tap of wind-driven sleet ricocheting off the my windows of my second-floor study. Down below my yard is buried beneath 23 inches of snow from the Big Snow of December '09!
So it is good to be inside, warm and snug, sipping a cup of hot chocolate in the early hours of a frigid night in mid-December. Maybe because of the seasonal contrast, tonight I chose some images recorded during a trip up in the Blue Ridge Mountains one balmy day this past July.
It was one of those idyllic outings during which I was again reminded how fortunate we are, that, by God's grace, we retired to this area, where the fields, forests, and mountains of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley are all just a few minutes away.
Although my ramblings for lilies are over for 2009, thanks to the wonders of technology, here I am at my desk reliving—and sharing with you eventually—the glorious golden beauty I found on this trip, when the weather was so pleasant!
I had not gone far that day when I came upon this colony of sunny jewels flourishing in gravelly, thin soil at the base of a limestone cliff just off the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Also known as Narrowleaf Evening Primrose, this native biennial first blooms in mid-summer and continues to adorn the base of this cliff well into September.
These brilliant yellow Oenothera fruticosa blossoms, which are about three inches across—I forgot my pencil "gauge" this trip—are obviously lilies that were hard to miss, especially against the dark, wet surface of the limestone background.
Another yellow lily, a member of the Buttercup (Ranunculaceae) family, the early summer blooming Marsh Marigold rivals the beauty of Southern Sundrops, to my eye.
But with completely different habitat requirements and bloom times they won't be seen together in the fields.
But in the Creator's economy, each adorns its field in a special way.
Remember His words: "And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. "
Any thoughts, pro or con? Why not drop me an anonymous note at the Comments page?
OR
Go back to the Main Directory to consider more lilies of the field.