Month: May 2023

Posted on in Aging, Amazing Creations, Beagle, Faith, Listen, Nature, Spiritual discipline, Spiritual growth, Thanks, Worship, Yield

Walking at CNC

Do you know what the opening photo is? Some even harvest these and sell them!

Bob and I love to hunt wildflowers. If you have ever searched for a particular shell at a beach you can relate. We search for Lady’s Slippers, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Larkspur, etc. We have only found Lady’s Slippers in the Smoky Mountains National Park, but the others we can find locally especially at Cincinnati Nature Center (CNC).

photo by Molly

This fellow was so lovely with the sun shining through it! Sadly the ground around it is covered with Lesser Celandine which has earned the status of invasive. The Nature Center is researching ways to eradicate it. If you look at the top edge of the log above you can see the moss blooming! Beyond those tiny filaments are daffodil leaves starting to grow blossoms for 2024.

Another Jack by Molly

One friend told us when they showed a Jack-in-the-Pulpit to a young person they had to explain what a pulpit was! A pulpit is traditionally where a preacher stands to deliver the sermon. The older pulpits sometimes had a cover over them like a roof, thus the flower resemblance. In case you are still unaware, below is a sampling of pulpits! Our church does not have a pulpit or even a lectern. The Pastor just sits on a stool and talks from there.

pulpit samples on line

When we hiked Whipple Sate Nature Preserve we saw Larkspur in many colors. We also saw them yesterday at Sycamore Park in Batavia.

We agreed that walking Sycamore was so much easier than Whipple! The dog loves the trail and was not allowed at Whipple. We like this park because it is level and even paved! We walked along the East Fork of the Little Miami river, too. The sound of the running water, spring song birds … just made me breathe deeply and thank the Lord for His blessings and refreshment!

The wild dogwoods through the other forest trees were a blessing at CNC!

Are you making time to slow down, listen to the natural world around you or nearby? Do you only lament your feeling of being dried up or make an effort to renew your connection with the Source of Life? I hope you will make an effort to do just that this week!

The Virginia Bluebells at Sycamore park were well past their prime. Bob bought me a Bluebell at the Nature Center plant sale. It looks pitiful in the back garden right now. Praying it will rebound and bless us next year with flowers! Just saw that something is eating holes in the leaves. Uh oh!

Take a walk this week and look for treasures in plain sight!

My dear man walking the trail at CNC

The opening photo was take of worm casings. Evidently very rich for your garden!

Posted on in Amazing Creations, Listen, Nature, Poetry, Spiritual discipline, Spiritual growth, Writing Life

May First Verse

May First ©Molly Lin Dutina

It was a quiet, cloudy morning
Stillness embracing early morn
Then I heard a creaking of the siding
A tossing of the saplings
Turned to bending of the decades old trees
As a ‘mighty rushing wind’ passed through
And almost as quickly the trees returned to stillness

A few moments later another gust came 
It seemed determined to be a steady blowing
Rain came flying past my window 
The wind became a gentle breeze
The music of raindrops overtook the wind
And May 1st was declared by the heavens

The wind, the rain, it all stopped as suddenly as it began
Bird song is heard again
Strange yellow/gray sky as sun rises higher
Wrestling with the spring weather front
Newly emerged maple leaves
Soft in coloring cling to their branch in the breeze
Help me cling to You, Jesus my source of life
Posted on in Amazing Creations, Faith, Nature, Traveling

Re-posting of Ash Cave/Bean Hollow

Bob says the ones that did not roll over with the account change need to be seen by all! Hoep you are not too confused by these shenanigans.

Ash Cave is part of Hocking Hills State Park and Forest. I posted earlier this year about our vacation there. The plaque on the trail to the cave reads in part:

Ash Cave, Ohio’s largest stone recess, stretches 700 feet across and rises 90 feet high.

The rock shelter was created when ground water percolating through the sandstone eroded away the formation’s weaker middle layer, undercutting the resistant top layer which forms the ceiling of the “cave.” The water dissolves away the cement which holds individual grains of sand together. Seasonal freezing and thawing causes expansion and contraction which further loosen the particles and on rare occasion, blocks of stone, until they break off. The falls also contributes to the slow erosive process.

Historic Marker

Now examine this photo from Bean Hollow State Beach in California.

Bean Hollow State Beach California

Sometimes sights in nature remind me of other natural things I have seen. Granted, the pebbles found in the rocks at the beach were more interesting that the hollows at Hocking Hills, but both transported me to praise God’s work in the wonders of nature.

The eroded wall was right behind me in this photo

1 The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it,
    the world, and all who live in it;
2 for he founded it on the seas
    and established it on the waters.

Psalm 24:1-2 NIV

“Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens… When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?”

Psalm 8:1, 3-4
Posted on in Aging, Amazing Creations, Faith, Just do it, Memories, Nature

Hiking, Suffering and Wildflowers

Joy is the transformation of our suffering, not the escape of all we have to face.

Mark Nepo

This post has had difficult showing up. I changed the type of WordPress account and some things did not transfer so easily. So If you have read this already, forgive me! Or enjoy the flowers once more.

May Apple struggles with dead leaf

This quote and this May Apple spoke to me. I also saw a trillium struggling with a dead leaf. Will I embrace these images and know that my suffering too can be transformed? Will I grasp that I do not have to escape all I have to face?

We took a walk at Eastfork state park. Then within a day or two we walked Whipple Nature Preserve. We had been there 2 years ago, during the pandemic. Wow! We were in older bodies now. Because of partial muscle tear in my right shoulder I could only use my walking stick with my left hand/arm. The hike was more difficult than we remembered, but when we got to the Betony Poppies it was well worth it!

Betony Poppies (yellow) and Large-Flowered Trillium (white)

The poppies covered many places on the hillside. At one point my phone got too hot next to my hiking body. This Brigadoon-like photo resulted.

Yes, it was a magical place!

How many other hillsides are covered with flowers and wonders that we never see? We are blessed to find these. I bask in their beauty. I had been feeling drained and empty. This helped fill my well again!

We saw “Nodding Trillium” which another hiker told us is supposed to bloom white. Yet here, it is blooming red!

Yes, the bloom is under the leaf! photo by r m dutina

Back to the quote above, we both were aching by the time we returned to the car. We promised we would skip one half of the trail next time… walk the branch to the left at the fork and then come back that way after we see flowers.

And oh, there were flowers! The trout lily had already bloomed. They have a special place in our hearts as at our last house they absolutely covered the hillside. The other flowers made up for missing the trout lilies! Violets in yellow, white, confederate, and purple wood violets or blue if you prefer!

photo by r m dutina
squaw root by r m dutina

As said on TV, “But wait! There’s more!!”

Shooting stars and squirrel corn!

I cannot seem to find just one name for this trillium. I have always called it Wake-Robin but online seems to call it ToadShade.

Photo by r m dutina

I left some flower photos out. We were drenched in beauty by the time we hiked back to the car. The reason I wanted to return to this hike was the Virginia Bluebells. One hiker told us they were about finished. I had almost given up hope of reaching them and Poof! There they were!

photo by r m dutina. Good thing he captured this. I was so delighted to see them, but also so tired that I never took a picture!

I am writing this on Tuesday after the Sunday hike. Yep, I am still sore and aching. Will I do it again next year? I will, with God’s help!!

The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.

Psalm 24:1 KJV
photo by r m dutina

It seems as if this tree next to where we parked is saying,”Good job, guys! High five!”