MIRACLE OF THE BLOSSOMING THORNS

Did my Mother's Day post suddenly disappear?
When I first posted it I was very satisfied - and proud to pay tribute to the memory my extraordinary mother. Then I began having second thoughts and felt that I was revealing too much.

I didn't delete it. I merely reverted it to a draft (and kept your kind comments).

So, I'm posting some of my recent/boring photos.

That dandelion caught my eye yesterday afternoon - so I plucked it, held it to the sky, and photographed it. 

I was reminded of an incident that happened when I was 2 or 3 years old. I was given a dandelion by one of my elder cousins and told to blow!
Instead, I accidentally inhaled and somehow choked on the damn thing. All that fuzzy stuff got stuck in my throat.

I have viewed dandelions with extreme caution ever since.

How about some blossoming miracles?

Remember a few weeks ago when I wrote a post about all those extremely annoying thorn bushes on my property?
Thorns and Haze  

The bushes have been multiplying for the past three years and they have NEVER yielded any type of flower whatsoever.

I initially thought they might be rose bushes - but they were simply thorn bushes.

Well, two days ago I went outside and - to my absolute astonishment - the thorns bushes were all blooming with white flowers!

It had to be a miracle!!
I immediately thought of the miracles at Lourdes, and I figured that an offspring of the long-ago occurrence in France had suddenly happened in rural Tennessee.

Taking immediate advantage of the improbable situation, I dropped to my knees and began praying for a full bank account and a cure for my bad back.

While praying in the weeds, my left knee went "out" and I got two tick bites. My back was so bad that I had extreme difficulty getting into an upright position again.

As I hobbled back to the house - deftly trying to avoid angry wasps and carpenter bees, my belief in miracles diminished considerably.

I now have an indestructible mass of annoying thorn bushes with allergy-inducing blossoms.

Miracle of the blossoms

 The backyard trees are now lush and green

THORNS AND HAZE

 
My weary soul was safely tucked in bed, resting - - but I forced my reluctant and aching body outside to do some long-neglected work.

It was late afternoon and intriguingly warm (the nights are still chilly). I grabbed an old rusty pair of  shears (clippers?) with which I was determined to attack the forces of unbridled nature that surround me.

What??

Thorns. I'm talking about weird, wild, nasty bushes loaded with dangerous thorns. There are no flowers on these monstrosities, only thorns. They eagerly populate the back part of my property all the way up to the forest. 

Last summer they were so thick that I was afraid to go near them. By autumn I summoned the courage to tackle a few of them, but my inspiration quickly waned.

So here I am, in early spring, chopping the hell out of them - trying to keep them away from the house. With only work gloves, clippers (shears?), and help from the Almighty Lord.

I only threw that in to piss off the atheists.

There was a strange, sort-of-smokey haze all afternoon. It lingered in the air like  the finale of a smouldering brush fire. I don't know what the source was, but it looked eerie.

Was there any doubt that I would capture the essence of the afternoon with my El Cheapo camera? 

This crappy photo (above) doesn't do justice to the thorn bushes, but you can see them at the edge of the forest. They look wimpy on the photo - but in real most of them are nearly as tall as me, and I'm 6' 1".

This photo gives a better view of the thorn bushes (left) and the area that I've cleared (right).

I'll give you a moment to catch your breath and ponder the situation.

I have a lot more photos of the thorns but I'll spare you.
How about the weird afternoon haze?

The roof of my shack (lower right)

I'm guilty of talking about the damn cats too much, but it's EXTREMELY rare to get a photo of all three of them together. I snapped these quickie pics when I let them out on the back porch this morning.

 Bosco and Scruffy on the porch and Scratch (Kitzee) eating some grass.

Here are the trio of felines running to the carpet. The previous owners of this place left a hideous old carpet on the back porch. The cats enjoy laying on it to catch the morning sun.

 Purrrfect harmony.

At least for the moment.