oh, dear... sadly, the above photo shows the state of much of the grass in this area where i live {the midwest}. it makes me feel so bad for many of the farmers who have lost their crops for the year... lost their livelihood.
for us non-farmers, it's not a life- or financial-altering thing. but it's a bummer to look at the brown grass at a time of year when it should be at its greenest. and just when isaac was getting used to the feeling of grass under his feet... the green lush kind. oh, well. i have nothing to complain about in light of what farmers are facing because of this draught. it wasn't just the lack of rain... but the spell of extreme heat, too.
i'm praying for some rain for them very soon. although, the news reported that some farmers are saying that it will be too late, even it rains today. and that will affect us all, they say... with subsequent rises in food prices.
if you haven't figured it out yet, i love nature and photographing it. so it's difficult to see the beauty in nature the way you have come to know it be altered.
but i have to say... sometimes, even when something is ugly in concept {like a fungal disease that is attacking maple trees}, it can still be a beautiful sight. of course, not everyone would agree with me. but to me, even this tree we spent a good hour under on sunday seems beautiful, though riddled with disease.
i'm not sure what the disease it has is called. tar spot maybe? whatever it is, the maple tree in our yard has it as well {the one right outside our living room window}, as do many maples in my neck of the woods. when you think of how the tree leaves are supposed to look, this just seems wrong. but i like to look for beauty even in the midst of messed up or unhealthy situations or circumstances. and when i took pictures of this maple on sunday, i found the beauty! the yellow spots lend a lovely texture to the leaves, don't you think?... as if they are meant to be there, even though i know they are not. it's too bad that, by autumn, those spots will turn black and cause the leaves to fall off prematurely {if it is black tar, that is}.
anyway, i enjoyed taking the photos. i can't even describe just how lovely it was to sit on the bench under this tree, overlooking the water down at the foot of the hill on a breezy day after the heat wave broke. just my little family and me. i'll have more pictures of our time there tomorrow. for now, i'm thinking about nature and all that is affected in it when things don't go as they should. when dry spells set in. when disease spreads. i don't know about you, but i'm glad that, like our lives and the things in them that die or become burned, dried up, bruised, beat up or infected by ugliness, nature is cyclical and what was once all wrong will be made new again. like our lives in Christ.
6 comments:
What a great reminder that beauty is all around us...we just need to notice it sometimes :)
thanks, kathy!
notice... i like that word. sometimes i think {and say} we have to look for it. but you just reminded me that we don't necessarily have to look for it {as if it is hidden}, but rather just open our eyes to it, because it's already there... notice. =)
we have a tree that looks like these too...darn diseases.
and we have also been praying for rain and still, it doesn't come.
i'm longing for a walk where i can see and smell the moisture in nature. something i don't ever remember missing like i do now......xo
until you said it, i didn't think i missed that either. but now that you mention it, i really do miss it. it's something you could always smell in the evenings around here... dew. weird to think it's gone. i hope it changes back. i hate to think that the whole summer would be this way!
My mom in IN lost her beautiful maple to some disease, maybe that was it.
My current blog post shows the effects of the drought we are in, too, here in the southwest. It's very sad and frightening because of the potential of wildfires.
yes, candace... i imagine so. same for colorado. we have no real threat of wild fires. but i know that the try terrain all around is what made so many towns cancel their fireworks for the holiday... just too much of a risk for fires starting as a result.
i drove a few hours north of where i live today, and even up there, it was completely dry... grass and farm fields all totally brown. we absolutely need rain in so many places.
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