“Only the poet can look beyond the detail and see the whole picture.”
Helen Hayes
“If God’s not in the picture, then all I’ve got is a frame.”
Craig D. Lounsbrough
(a pristine Spring day/ Julie Cook/ 2023)
A year has passed by since my life flipped on its head and I moved from Georgia–
moving to the mountains of North Carolina.
When I moved, I moved with a torn ACL that had not been fully rehabbed.
I had a brace on my knee and my world in a thousand boxes.
I’ve lived with a torn ACL before but that knee served its full time in rehab.
Surgery has never been recommended…either tear.
But rehab was a must.
I don’t play tennis nor do any pivoting type of activities–
I’m pretty much usually moving simply forward, backward, up and down…
should there be any need to twist or pivot…then it’s all she wrote.
Lateral movements are not possible and God forbid I hit a slick spot and
need to maintain balance.
I had thought that I could do the necessary exercises on my own,
but time, settling and logistics muddied the waters.
My current home’s incline is a far cry from the relatively flat
to rolling curvatures of Georgia.
Therefore it’s slow and steady goes the race.
So I’ve managed to put the brace on a shelf and have found my way to a nice walking
path down the mountain.
The walking path is carved into a large pasture. Two loops making a mile.
The path meanders by a trout stream then back out into a sunny wild grass field.
It’s been created and maintained by a local fire department as it butts up to the
back of the station.
One might not think walking a flat gravely path out in the middle of a pasture
could offer any sense of wild natural beauty…but you might be surprised.
A while back I found a great little app for my phone…PictureThis
It allows one to take a picture of a plant, tree, shrub, nut etc and it will identify
the mystery.
It offers descriptions, plant information, care information,
latin names, species, genus, etc.
What’s poisonous, what’s edible, perennial, annual, deciduous or not…
I often find myself stopping along my laps, taking quick snaps of what most folks
would consider pesky weeds only to discover tiny treasures under foot.
So imagine my surprise when I spied what I thought was
just another wooden telephone pole… only to discover it was a bit more.
Back in Georgia, telephone poles are typically tall brown, creosote embalmed pines.
The poles in my North Carolina area are more grayish in nature with a distinctive
mottled wood pattern.
Curious, I pulled out my phone and opened the ‘picturethis’ app—I snapped a picture
and quickly learned that this pole is actually a Rocky Mountain Bristlecone Pine.
Who knew?!
The app could actually identify a common processed telephone pole
So if you want to enhance your wanderings…I highly recommend getting the
PictureThis app for your phone.
(creeping buttercup / Julie Cook/ 2023)
(Mountain Laurel / Julie Cook / 2023)
(Mountain Laurel / Julie Cook / 2023)
I assure you that it is not by faith that you will come to know him,
but by love; not by mere conviction, but by action.
John the Evangelist is my authority for this statement.
He tells us that anyone who claims to know God without keeping
his commandments is a liar.
St. Gregory the Great
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