Tuesday, April 03, 2007

"The flowers appear on the earth,

The time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree ripens its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance."
Song of Solomon 2:12-13

The clouds parted at about 11:30 this morning so I grabbed the camera and the youngers and I headed south, towards the Jordan Valley, just about 25 minutes from our home and the habitat of some of the most diverse flora in the world. What a riot of color greeted us! God has graciously let the rain fall in abundance this past winter and now we are enjoying an exquisite spring.

My youngers are pretty good sports about receiving impromptu botany lessons ad naueseum. I have to admit, I do get a little loopy about wildflowers when they are this beautiful and profuse. Younger son was happy to find a scorpion under a rock and enjoyed chasing a couple of lizards. He also saved the day when he rescued my lens cap which had fallen into a rocky crevice.



These pictures are especially for Lori, who specifically requested pictures of "fields of flowers". I wish you could have been with us today, Lori. I'll post some individual "portraits" later on.

4 comments:

Janie said...

Beautiful, Melissa, absolutely beautiful! I love the color mix. What a unique experience you have there (which I've not yet figured out).

In the first picture, are those rock "walls" there by man or nature? It almost looks like they are retaining walls to prevent heavy rain from washing the hillside.

I love the photography you provide! Excellent with that camera, girl!

I plan to answer you classroom / teacher questions in a few days. I will be there through Thursday, so this week's a busy one.

Sam said...

wow that is beautiful, this is the image I have been dreaming about for years...I have not seen spring in the mideast for 20year and those red flowers, i always think of them...! great pictures!

Quotidian Life said...

Janie,
The rock walls are man-made--this is a farming area, though on a small, traditional scale. When we were meandering down the country roads we saw older famers, wearing the traditional "dish-dash" (robes) working in the fields, assisted by only a donkey. Thanks for the encouraging words! I'm really having a lot of fun taking learning about photographing flowers. I really don't know much, however, and am just snapping lots, deleting lots, and saving a few.

Sam,
I'm glad you enjoyed the flowers. I've been thinking of you today and the fact that you haven't seen a middle eastern/levant spring for 20 years. I hope that you will be able to someday soon. I plan to keep posting Jordanian wildflowers/plants through the spring, so stay tuned.

Weeping Sore said...

Thanks for sharing your beautiful pictures. Here in Southern California, we've only had a fraction of our (already slim) annual winter rain. So it was nice to see somebody else's spring wildflowers.