A year went by...

It's been a year now since I received my digital camera as a birthday gift.
Bernie kept asking me to think about what I wanted in a camera, and of course, I had no idea except I wanted one that would be easy to use.
Finally we went down to the Best Buys store, with its robust electronics section.
After considering a few options I selected a Sony cybershot.
The camera has been an absolute joy to use, and son Jeff got the exact same model later.

Few possessions make me "puppy with a tail a'wagging" happy; I can count them on one hand:

1. My "one speed" bike
2. My computer
3. My digital camera

They are all I need to have a great time all by myself.

A few days after I got the camera, my in-laws came out for a visit and we spent a lot of time outside enjoying the garden.
One morning I was THRILLED to look out into the garden and see that my Louisiana Walking Iris had bloomed!

I had bought one plant right after we moved in, and never noticed anything more about the plant other than it had long green strappy spikey leaves.
Turns out each plant blooms for ONE day, ONE time a year.

No wonder I had alway missed the blooms before.

After the bloom finishes, the tip of the bloom weighs down, and touched the earth, sends out roots, and a new plant forms, with a stem like a bridge between plants.

The plant is also called an Apostle Plant, because it will not bloom until it has twelve leaves.
I thought it was because it kept spreading its beauty everywhere it touched.
In boggy areas of the south the plant spreads in broad swaths, and the blossoms are stunning.

Yesterday I was simply amazed to see the shriveled blooms on several of our Iris plants.
I had missed several of the blooms! This morning I was prowling around hoping for more bloom on other plants.
Several have buds, so I won't completely miss seeing this year's blooms.

I know these plants don't have calendars, or dayrunners or any other sort of time keeping device.
The same amount/ratio of day light/ darkness occurs in the fall, yet the plant doesn't bloom then.

They bloom exactly one week after my birthday.
(How ego centric is that statement? Don't care...I like thinking it like that!)

I'm sure botonist could explain it all to me in scientific terms.
Those terms would in no way remove my sense of wonder...this plant was created to bloom the third week in April, and is faithful to its purpose.

It does what it is designed to do, whether I, or anyone else notices or not.

How very cool is that?

How very cool would it be if the same could be said for all of Creation?

That would be very cool indeed.