A Small Ray Of Hope Teeters On An Original Thought

The rather ordinary seesaw (above) at my local park got me thinking about a faraway seesaw teetering on a rare original thought worthy of praise for its designers, Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello. Their creative thinking at a US/Mexico border barrier gave not only joy to me but more importantly made some kids in a difficult situation happy for a time. If you've lost faith in humanity, look for a small ray of hope HERE.

This post is linked to My Corner Of The World.

Creepy Plant Creatures Keep On Growing

“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” - John Muir

A television program about plants caught my attention recently. Time lapse cinematography sped up their growth and exposed the plants as living entities reaching for the sun and driven to survive. The film unmasked what at first glance appeared to be harmless leafy limbs with pretty petal faces. A closer look showed most foliage is ferociously determined to propagate. This is certainly true of the morning glory (top left) I spotted at Crescent Beach. The cone shaped flower that I wrote about earlier grows on vines by the hundreds of thousands. Not just in my neighborhood, it overtakes unattended gardens with roots that stealthfully creep underground throughout our world.

The program gave me new insight into the dangling flower (above) that I held as it fluttered strangely like a captured exotic bird about to snap at my fingers. Whether a steely tangle of roots strangling rival species embedded in the soil or seeds hitching a ride on the slightest breeze to far off destinations, the spectacle of these living organisms (revealed by the film's quickened time frame) was breathtaking.

Formidable as any prehistoric beast or creature currently in the wild, plants are trampled upon by humankind and hacked to pieces yet they live on and thrive quietly adapting. Even a sliver of dirt on the pavement provides a nest from which to grow.

For the most part the marvelous transformations and survival tactics of plants go unnoticed. In the end, they crave what people need ... sunlight, soil, air and water. They grow, move, reproduce and eat.

We invite select plants into our homes. And while some taste good enough to eat, others like the aloe vera could even heal us.

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Still the kid I used to be

Visit Postcards From Penelope Puddle and Penelope Puddlisms: BC Life Is A Whale Of A Ride to view more West Coast scenes.

Because the state of our planet is the most pressing issue of our time, link up and learn about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report.

One Of A Kind In The Middle Of A Quadrillion

I saw sailboats on a windless day recently at Crescent Beach. It was relaxing to watch them get nowhere bobbing gently in the water ... relaxing in contrast to events in the news. In addition to other horrors, there were earthquakes in California and relatively minor shakes along the BC coast. Luckily no lives were reported lost. Devastation occurs regularly in our world as do joyful moments, although life usually straddles the middle like the stairway (below) with a forest on either side and shore at the bottom.

In Ocean Park, the 1001 Steps had no walkers so it was up to me to make those wooden boards creak and to hear the birds sing as they darted from leaf to leaf.

Along Sandy Trail, there was a red door saying welcome that led nowhere except to where my imagination could take me as it did HERE.

A crow hoping for scraps found none ... on either side of the fence (below).

It occurred to me that even when there’s nothing to find and nowhere to go it’s surreal to just lie on the grass and watch clouds drift over our remarkable world away from the news ... especially since our chances of being born to witness all this is said to be 1 in 400 trillion to 1 in 400 quadrillion. Each of us exists improbably if not impossibly.

See more of our OUR WORLD by exploring sites from around the globe.

Still the kid I used to be

Visit Postcards From Penelope Puddle and Penelope Puddlisms: BC Life Is A Whale Of A Ride to view more West Coast scenes.

Because the state of our planet is the most pressing issue of our time, link up and learn about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report.

Happy Birthday, Canada: Forward Looking, Creative, Aiming High!

(Penelope Puddle waving the Canadian flag is original art
 that my daughter created for me long ago as a gift.)

July 1st is a day to celebrate Canada and Canadians, including one man who aimed extraordinarily high. Recently returned astronaut David Saint-Jacques wore the relaxed grin of a charmed adventurer who took a risk, survived and thrived. On Earth for just four days, after over 200 days on board the International Space Station, he spoke descriptively and poignantly to reporters about his experience. Whereas space travelers generally note what small specks we are here on Earth, he had another perspective. Viewing Earth from a distance, he marveled that the human mind, beyond the physical mechanics of the brain, can achieve vast, far-reaching wondrous things if focused and unified. We're all travelers on the same mothership even if we wave different flags.

See OUR WORLD to explore sights from around the globe.

Visit Postcards From Penelope Puddle and Penelope Puddlisms: BC Life Is A Whale Of A Ride to view more West Coast scenes.

Because the state of our planet is the most pressing issue of our time, link up and learn about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report.

Canada Day, 2019, Crescent Beach, Surrey, BC, Photo by Maria Pavlik