Center of Sunflower

Bright yellow petals happily greet the sunshine when you have sunflowers in your garden. These beautiful flowers bring a burst of happiness to the garden with their vibrant color.

The center of sunflowers gradually open, spreading their happy faces and their bright pollen for the bees and butterflies to come and enjoy.

I've never grown sunflowers before, and this one was a happy accident too. I spread a few packages of wildflowers into an empty plot of our garden and waited to see what came up. Imagine my surprise when a sunflower started to grow!

I plan on buying some sunflower seed packets next spring to add to my garden again. There are so many different varieties and colors. Which ones are your favorite?

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Rose with Water Droplets

When was the last time you paused in your daily life to stop and smell the roses? Most mornings I take a bit of time to look at my flowers to see what new blossoms have added color to the day.

With the morning sun shining on my roses, I was struck by the simple beauty of water droplets on the petals of the delicate newly opened rose.

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Bachelor Button Flowers of Many Colors

My daughter loves the color blue, so when we were planning our garden for the year I bought a packet of bachelor button seeds for her to plant in her section of the garden. She sprinkled the seeds and waited for them to bloom.

During the nightly watering of our garden, we would check on the progress of the blooms. It took every so long (well, to a 9 year old) before the flowers began to open. The first flowers were all a lovely shade of blue, just as expected.

As the other bachelor buttons began to grow, we noticed that some of the buds seemed different. The bachelor button seeds were intermixed with other wildflowers so we didn't think anything of it. Until the next few opened.

I had no idea that bachelor buttons were found in any other colors. While the pink, purple, fuschia, light blue, and almost white flowers were a surprise....they weren't a disappointment. We have had a good time looking at the new flower buds as they begin to grow and guessing what color they will end up being once bloomed.

So, we ended up loving the bachelor buttons of many colors in our garden. While my daughter was partial to the blue ones still, I enjoy the deep purple and almost white ones the best. Next year we will get some more seeds and see what happens. Oh, the wonder of the natural world and the surprises that are found there.

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Ripples in the Sand

When you visit the beach, you never know the beauty that you will find. Which animals will be prowling around on the sand? Will you find a tide pool with little creatures in their natural habitat? What colorful rocks and shells you see. Sometimes it is in the simplicity of the ripples in the sand that the retreating water has left behind.

I have fond memories of weeks during the summer spent at the beach. Wiggling my toes in the sand, looking for shells, avoiding jellyfish, and splashing in the waves. It was always neat to see the waves rolling out and find what little creatures were left behind in it's wake. I never remember seeing such a defined ripple pattern in the sand though, and it was intriguing to me on this day when we went to the beach.

We are pretty landlocked here in Utah. Many of the lakes and reservoirs have stony "beaches" that hurt to lay down on and there is no way to build a real sandcastle.  But if you visit Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake, you will find a real sand beach (as well as buffalo roaming around the island) that you can enjoy.

My family spent a great day at the beach and had a fun time running on the sand, watching the birds flit and fly, collecting interesting rocks, and wading out into the salty water.

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