[As mentioned in July Part 1, Hurricane Irma has been a major disruption this summer. It's a story for September, but not until I get through July and August in my summer photo series--though I realize that it's technically no longer summer. Looking at the pre-Irma photos of our property is bittersweet. It's hard to see how much was destroyed by the hurricane, but I'm confident that much will also be restored in due time. There will always be beauty--and sometimes it can be found in the most unlikely places.]
After the beach, the remaining weeks of July showcased our typical mid-summer flare--muscovy ducks gliding across the pond's surface, shimmery-winged dragonflies on barb-wired fences and wildflower blooms. Swallow-tailed kites, pileated woodpeckers, blue jays and mockingbirds...and bushes and bushes and bushes of ripening beautyberries.
And those air potato vines. I'm well aware that they are an unwelcomed invasive species, but how do I not love those shiny heart-shaped leaves in the thickets along the creek before the air potato beetles do their work.
Virginia creeper climbs the tall pines, and primrose willow dots the open field and pasture. Resurrection fern, unfurling from its dried spiral with every summer rain, drapes the live oak limbs, as 3 armadillo pups root in the ground underneath.
And when the goldenrod shoots begin to grow--I'm delighted to remember that there will be not-summer days.
He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
~Ecclesiastes 3:11
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.
~Isaiah 40:8
