Trail Blazing

Beautiful This Time of Year

I spent the Memorial Day weekend at The Last Stop and I don't think I've ever seen it look more beautiful. Everything is so green and glowing. Knowing that the Texas heat of summer will wither everything to a crunchy brown seems impossible when it is all so alive right now.

I took lots of pictures of the wild flowers, trees and the scenes I want to remember. Here are a few from the prickly pear collection.













There is something poetic about the prickly pear cactus to me. The stickers are torture. Not the big, obvious stickers, but rather those tiny, needly, hair-like ones that pierce any piece of clothing and burrow their way into your skin, becoming impossible to retrieve. Contrast that diabolical defense mechanism with the beautiful, soft, bright flowers they produce for a few weeks during the spring and you just have to forgive them for trying to kill you earlier. It's amazing that the cows can eat these things and not fall on the ground in writhing pain when their tongues become pin cushions.

I just love how the flower bud is pink and as it starts to emerge it looks orange and when it burts open it is the brightest neon yellow.

The pods that stay behind once the flowers fade are called tuna. This is the part of the plant with which you can make prickly pear jelly. Mom and I have both made batches of this before and you just wait...your rotation on the Christmas gift list is coming when you, too, will receive this little jar of Last Stop crimson goodness.

A little trivia...if you're a fan of the Greater Tuna plays, that name comes from the tuna on the cactus.

To see more of these rustic beauties, I have a collection set up on Flickr.

Inspired

I heard Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address this weekend, in honor of Memorial Day.

When I hear these words, I feel like I am listening to something divinely inspired.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

I Can Identify

The crazed look of enthusiasm in the eyes of this girl as she anticipates her jam sandwich is one of which I can identify. Wait for it....wait for it...

Truth

You are beautiful.



I think this simple little project is awesome. I hope you'll read about it and send away for your own free You Are Beautiful stickers to place somewhere in your world.

The transformative power of believing you are beautiful could be enormous. I think about how I would be different if I had believed this early on. Just imagine if everyone knew they were a beautiful creation and could see the real beauty in other people. Pretty cool.

Good 'Ol 1954 Love

Incomprehensible

An Oklahoma company went public today, making its CEO, and majority share holder, a billionaire. Oklahoma now has 3 billionaires. 3.

One billion blows my mind.

One billion seconds ago it was 1959.

One billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

One billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

And one billion really isn't considered that large a number anymore, is it? YouTube sold for over 1.5 billion dollars. Warren Buffet donated 33 billion dollars to the Gates Foundation. There are 7 billion people on the Earth.

And I have one billion reasons why I haven't really written any stories in more than a month.

So I wonder what this new Oklahoma billionaire will do with all of that money... (Can I get an ANYTHING HE WANTS TO DO?!)

Let There Be Light

Over the weekend I made a cheap lightbox out of a cardboard box and some tissue paper. Main problem? I don't really have a good light source. I'm improvising, using an old lamp. I intend to keep working on this until I have a perfect little box of perfect light.

On another note, I hope you'll read this post written by a guy who attended a Dutch Festival this past weekend. His pictures and captions made me laugh out loud.

From My Urban Dictionary

BLUETOOL.

A person who wears a Bluetooth wireless earpiece everywhere they go to seem trendy and important. Places to spot bluetools include restaurants, movie theaters, malls, gyms, grocery stores and cars.

When I walked into the elevator following a work meeting yesterday:

Bluetool: Hi, how are you?

Me: Hi. I’m great, and yourself?

Bluetool: Oh, sorry. I wasn’t talking to you, I’m on a call. You know, Bluetooth.

Me: Bluetool.

Lonesome George

I was moved by this funny and poignant story from today's New York Times about Lonesome George, a certain type of tortoise who is the last of his kind, and has been since he was found over 20 years ago.

Scientists are on the hunt for a female, but the prospects are dim.

I find myself rooting really hard for George, just like I did last year when those researchers thought they caught a glimpse of the thought-to-be-extinct Ivory Billed Woodpecker.

I want to believe that extinction doesn't have to happen...that there is the possibility we haven't screwed everything up. That life will survive even though we humans have been careless. I want George to find his mate!

Better Than Zoloft

Recommended by Four Out of Five Doctors

Nothing Says Love Like a 4-Wheeler Built For Two

My parents are the most industrious, hard-working people I know. They are always puttering around their place in Texas, doing odd jobs. Like digging up prickly pear cactus, or clearing fields of Mesquite trees, or building rock walk-ways. They are painting the house this week and in the next weeks they'll begin building their screened in sun room. Sounds like fun, huh? They LOVE this stuff and never seem to run out of energy.

To make hauling things around the Last Stop easier, they got a 4-Wheeler that they hook their trailer up to. If they're working together mom will drive and dad sits on the seat he fashioned on the trailer. My dad is pretty ingenious, so I have to give him credit for figuring out a more comfortable ride.

It doesn't matter how many times I look at these pictures, I laugh out loud. It's safe to say that four months in to retirement? LOVING IT!