In defense of Dandelions…..it is a matter of perspective.

Who can resist a bouquet of freshly picked dandelions from a child? Remember your innocence when you thought they were so pretty?

I am a sorta kinda military brat…that is my dad worked for a company that worked with the U.S. military. We moved quite often, usually locating near military bases. My brother and I attended schools “on base” along with “regular schools” depending on where we were stationed. That meant (for me) a different school from third grade thru my senior year in high school (except for three years in junior high in Korea). The dandelion is the “official flower” of the military brat: A dandelion is able to live and thrive wherever it is planted. Almost every part of it is useful. It travels where the wind blows.

Several years ago my husband worked for a gentleman from India. He told my husband this story:
When he was a young man, he moved from India to the United States. He found a home to rent and soon his young wife joined him in the States. He returned home one day to find her very excited. “Look at our backyard!” she exclaimed. “It is full of flowers!!!” He went to the patio window and discovered the dandelions had “bloomed.”

Are those weeds in your backyard…or has God planted a wildflower field just for you? It is just a matter of perception.

Wild Horses

A quick drive today from Bartlesville, OK to Sedan, KS could have meant driving our usual route of Hwy 75 to Caney and over to Sedan.  Not a bad drive...but one we make a couple of times a week.  Today was one of those just pretty days and when the intersection with Hwy 75 and Hwy 10 came up...the pick up truck just almost turned west on Hwy 10 on its own.  

Its a fun road--better driven in the Jeep but the pick up had to do for today.  First you go over the Copan Lake Dam (which is high because of recent storms).  Then curves and up and down the hills and into the valleys.   A motorcyclist's dream road.   Everything is so green and wild flowers are in every ditch and gully.  The fields are yellow with mustard.  Another curve and across Hulah Dam!

And then there are the horses!   Many of the large ranches here in Oklahoma are home to the Bureau of Land Management's wild horse program.  There's controversy about this program--but there are no words to describe the beauty of a wild horse herd.  To see them running and drinking from the ponds is truly breathtaking.  

But the best is the sound.  Stop the truck.  Get out and listen.  You can hear the wind...the caw of a crow...and the horses--soft blowing of their breath, a whinny...thank  you, Lord, for the horses and for those that keep them and care for them.