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Weekly Photo Challenge: Sunset
I could not decide. Which one? And why? Don’t forget you can click on them to see full size.
DRAMA QUEENS!
Mostly I will allow these shots to speak for themselves.
I don’t know where you live, but if you know anything about wasps, which is what the large creature is, here, you know that anything smaller than a wasp that can make a wasp act terrified, is a force to be dealt with.
I dealt with them both.
But look!
What you see here is a large, round, brown planter beside a smaller, rectangular, gray planter, with a large black wasp caught in a black widow web. It is she, herself, also visible, moving in. Can you see her red dots?
Sorry I couldn’t stage these better. Uncooperative subjects! The widow is obvious unafraid; not so, the wasp.
Based on the size of it, the wasp may have been a queen? Makes a good story: One queen defeats another.
It’s that time of year, when we remember we are surrounded, here, with large and dangerous beasts. Always, stay at least four feet from a black widow spider because it is a jumping spider and is fearless.
Well, almost fearless. I used a zoom function to get this seemingly close. At first she was put off by my flash, but she got over it.
And always, ALWAYS go immediately to a hospital if a black widow spider bites you. They may not give you anti-venom, but they will know what to do and you will need close observation for at least two days. A black widow spider bite can kill a full-grown man in about 4 hours. Do not think you are an exception.
As a clue, besides the obvious red marking on a shiny black spider, the web is tough and of no apparent pattern, as if the weaver were drunk. It makes an audible tearing sound if you tear it, because it is such a tough web. They prefer undisturbed places, which our front porch has become, since it’s been so hot around here.
Time to sweep!
The Time I Got Lost at Church
It was our first time there.
It was big.
We had to park a block away and climb a long flight of stairs just to get in.
But it was good. Really good preaching.
Then the baby needed whatever babies seem always to need when you really want to stay seated in church.
And I made the trek to the nursery, aided by the aides in the hallways. You see, this church really was big. Several stories high and took up a whole block. Just the building.
However, after going down two hallways, down the elevator, and down two more hallways, nursing the baby, and changing the baby, with my geographically challenged mind–I could not find my way back to the sanctuary.
Could. Not.
I also could not find any of the illustrious hallway aides I had used to get so far away from my family. Although I knew not where I was, nor where I needed to go, I could sort of tell where I was going: in circles.
Finally I spied an aide and gave him that sad-puppy look. He asked me if I needed help.
“I’m lost,” I told him.
He raised one eyebrow and shifted his posture.
Oh, no. I didn’t mean that. Not in a Baptist church. Not that kind of lost!
“I mean–I’m saved!–but I can’t find my way back from the nursery to the sanctuary.”
Practically a slide show of faces slid over his face: relief, disappointment, trying-not-to-laugh, sureness.
And he led me, personally, to the place I needed to be, which I was very much farther from than I thought.
And we decided that although it was an extremely pleasant church, we really were more the little church type.
Sunday Scriptures – Fall
For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant;
its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich man
will fade away even while he goes about his business. James 1:11
The Keys in the Car Caper
“You can tell it any way you want to, but you did it.”
Those were my husband’s parting words to me, administered with an ornery grin.
Oh yeah. I did it.
I went to town (partly to run errands for him) and when I accidentally left my keys in the car, I also accidentally locked it.
It’s one of those newer models and the guys in the auto parts store apologized that they were scared to try to help with it.
It would have made a good Lucy Ball episode.
Except — these days we have cell phones. I could call my husband and plead insanity and he would come help me.
Except — he wasn’t in the house. So I unknowingly woke our night-shift working daughter. Ooh, I was so sorry about that. She had no idea where her dad was, she mumbled to me, but would find him for me and he would come and help me.
Except — when he got back to the house from tending chickens, he learned he also had accidentally left his keys in the car I had taken to town. He remembered and found the valet key he had stashed wherever guys keep valet keys, borrowed our daughter’s car, and came to my rescue.
Meanwhile, I had gone across the street to get a cup of coffee and had shared my end of the story with the kind waitress. She was so sympathetic, she gave me her pen to cheer me up.
By now, as I feared, the whole town knows about our keys, the only excitement we’ve had for at least a week, but I have learned a new level of cherishing thankfulness for this tiny town where the parts guys contemplated helping and the coffee waitress gave me her pen.
And that’s how I want to tell it.
And I did not do quite all of it.
THE DROUGHT BUSTER
It began Friday, just a few drops now and then, sometimes a quarter-inch shower or two.
But last night, the bottom dropped out. We’ve had real rain.
So, I learned a little about how to take photos in the dark and stayed out awhile just to enjoy the difference in everything.
The birds sing differently this morning. The clattering of the tree leaves sounds different. Every sound seems muffled by humidity.
The skies overhead are still gray and heavy with more to come.
Thanks be to God.
Home's Cool! 