Author: lindaskelton

I’m excited! I got an upgraded ‘phone’ which also means an upgraded camera!  So I’ve been snapping pictures at every chance!

 Of creatures that bumble about in my flowers…

 And Buffalo berries that draw bear-ies and cause trails to be closed for human traffic at this time of year…

But this one by the Bow River stays open…

Thankfully.

Closer to home… we went scavenging for Wild Raspberries and were rewarded with a pound of berries, various stickers in our socks, a refreshing dip in the chilling pond! and the beautiful light of early evening outback…

There’s no better pastime for a day off work than a quiet nap in the park in Banff while clouds compete with sun overhead on a record-breaking hot day!

We don’t take clear skies for granted right now though. There is a great wildfire blazing just over the  mountain range. Some days ash is falling and you’d rather not have to breathe.  Others we sneak away on the tandem in search of cleaner air to fuel our exercise…

And that’s the latest of summer in the Bow Valley.

–LS

May the glory of the LORD endure forever; May the LORD rejoice in His works.  

He looks on the earth, and it trembles; He touches the hills, and they smoke.

Ps.104:31-32 NKJV

Lilies astound me!  They are so perfect, so hardy, so brilliantly designed and they just seem to pop up out of nowhere.  But never have I known them to appear in such a place as they did this week!

There they were sitting beside a park trash can next to our parking spot in Banff.

Alstromeria, a Peruvian lily, is one of my very favorites!  I stopped to exclaim and a couple shot their heads out of a nearby car.  They announced that they had come to Banff to attend their daughter’s wedding but would be travelling and just couldn’t take the bouquet with them.  So…I did ( :
They were very pleased not to have let the flowers go to waste.

God seems to do this all the time.  What’s the point of a wildflower bloom that is never spotted?  And yet,  it is doing just what it is intended to do: Bloom where it’s planted!  And He sees it.  And once in a while I happen upon these lovelies and try to capture something of them to share…

The common Wood Lily amazes me the way it just pops up here and there in forest or meadow.

And then there are the wild orchids. We tried out a new trail this week.  Entering the woods we were met by mosquitoes and a very rooty uphill trail.  Scurrying along to evade the winged miseries I had scarcely a chance to snap some poor pictures of these extraordinary Calypso Orchids.  Such elegance for a wildflower!

(I had to borrow this picture to show what these orchids really look like close up…)

At a much more leisurely pace I wandered one evening around about our house to see what I could see–

Honeysuckle…Cinquefoil..,Groundsel…and Northern Bedstraw (?)

Wild Raspberry cane…Wild Blue Flax… and of course, Alberta’s Provincial flower, the wild rose!

But this Common Blue-eyed Grass was my favorite ( ;

As I strolled back along this old paved path intended for golf carts that never showed up, I noticed the Wolf Willow is taking back its wild places.   The golf course never came to fruition, and one day its paved paths will be swallowed up in wildness.  I couldn’t help thinking that this is the way the Kingdom of God advances, like yeast in dough, unseen but ever multiplying and causing the bread to rise… like a tiny mustard seed that becomes a great ‘tree’…like a swallowing up of death in victory. It will prevail over all the well-worn paths of this world; it has power to break through the toughest heart and bring new life…

And one day Jesus will reign uncontested and every knee will bow to His undeniable right to rule.

–LS