"They seek him here, they seek him there, those Frenchies seek him everywhere..."

I found this itty-bitty, orange flower at the base of my steps, hiding under some others. I never even realized it was there. I did some investigating with my dad and found out what it was. It turns out it was a pimpernel! (Having read The Scarlet Pimpernel in high school I always pictured that the flower would be bigger but I guess the character being so elusive it would seem fitting.)

Anyway, it's very dainty but the colors are very striking. They come in blue, orange and red. They are sometimes called the "poorman's barometer" as they close when the weather is turning bad/air pressure changes. I had assumed they just closed up at night like the asters. When closed, they wrap their petals around themselves like a microscopic rose bud. The leaf pattern under the bud is a perfect star shape, which I also found endearing.


The petals are orange, the center purpley and magenta. The stamen are yellow.
It's very colorful for such a small flower. I really like it. Anyway, here are some pics I took of mine for you to enjoy.

Wild Thang...you make my heart sing....

Little Miss Personality

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

The other day I saw a faint rainbow and tried to show it to Cailen. She just couldn't seem to find it. For the next few days she kept sulking "I wanna see the rainbow Mommy....I wanna see it." Sadly, I kept having to tell her that it was all gone. I have learned the recipe over the years for a rainbow sky. Generally I find them if the east is dark and it's sunny overhead around 6-7pm. Tonight it was that way but it had NOT rained here yet. (I had a friend have her car destroyed by lightning before it rained, so I guess anything is possible!)

I kept looking but wasn't quite sure I'd find one. Not wanting Cailen to get her hopes up, I didn't mention this to her. I was just watching Riley and cleaning up some toys to go inside when Cailen suddenly stood up and exclaimed "Mommy I found a rainbow!" Sure enough, in the dark eastern sky there was a giant bright rainbow. We ran in the house to get my camera. We ran out. It had no memory card in it!! We ran back in! Got the card. Cailen said something along the lines of "we're doing so much running!!" :) I also got my video camera....I took some pictures. Cailen did NOT want to be in the picture as much as I wanted her to be.

Perhaps the rainbow shorts she was wearing were just too much for her!! :) As I was going to go inside because it was FINALLY raining, I looked back to see the rainbow it's brightest by the fire station's flag.

I ran over, in the rain, with my camera to get these shots. I am happy that I did. It was kind of cool. :)



Also, on my video I asked Cailen "Cailen what did you find?" She had just leaned over to pick something up. She answered "I found a rock!" and showed the camera....That's not exactly what I was looking for, but funny nonetheless! :)

Strawberry Fields Forever

We had been invited to go strawberry picking on Sunday afternoon with friends. Unfortunately, they got held up with some preliminary plans and weren't able to get to the patch before it was going to close, at least not without rushing through what was supposed to be a leisure activity! So we had gone to church prepared to pick strawberries afterward. I kept and washed recycled strawberry containers (of which we've been eating a lot!) and brought them to store our pickings. It was the perfect weather, though in the sun a bit hot. We had fun and brought uncle Ryan as a substitute for our family of friends. The strawberries were the best I've had in years. I forgot since childhood that picking them fresh meant they would be WARM by the sun, succulent, juicy and leave us with red slimey, sweet faces. I was almost afraid there would be an extra $5 charge per red face that left the patch! Woops. It was really to keep the kids from tasting these ruby red wonders before we left. Who could blame them? Or...me? :)