We've been working on this little project that I thought I'd share with you here.
It began as an effort to help me remember the names of the wildflowers that we see along the trails and roadsides, but it has become a way of passing them onto my boys.
You know the way your heart fills up when you are in a full congregation singing the Doxology because you realize that those words are heavy with the hopes and prayers of generations before you?
You know that feeling of one-ness and spirit that makes your skin go all goosebumpy when you sing the national anthem with a stadium full of fans?
No? Well maybe it's just me...
Anyhow, I get a little bit of that same feeling when I see a flower in the wild and can call it by name - the sense that I'm communing with all the folks that have trod this soil before me and loved the wild things that live in it.
And I want very much to know that those names are stored up in the hearts of my men too, because a flower is just a flower, but when you can say its name, Rain Lily or a Primrose, it blossoms into a memory of the hot sun on your neck, mosquitos and lemonade and sunsets.
So when we come home from our walks, I upload my photos. Then we seek out the names of any flowers that I don't know and label them using Picnik.
All these photos get printed and slipped into a little photo album that we carry with us.
Later, in the fall, when all the flowers have gone, we'll put these photos into a Blurb Book so that we can linger over them through the winter and carry them with us next spring because, as Lady Bird Johnson so perfectly said, "they're the stuff of our hearts."
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For a few more wildflower resources and a peek into our trip to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, visit the Ranch!
