Dandelion and I

June 12, 2022

Foggy sunrise, June 9, 2022

I sat down on the damp rocks and breathed in the cool morning air, so unusual for June. Dandelion was next to me, bud still closed. I noticed the dew on dandelion and watched the fog dance over the water, slowly burning away with the rising sun.

Dandelion and I sat together, feeling the quiet breeze and watching the birds. Bluebird chased Eastern Kingbird away and sat on a branch preening her feathers. Blue Jay landed in the grass and began a series of fluttery pounces, seemingly trying to catch something I could not see. Both Downy and Red-Bellied woodpecker came through finding bug snacks in the bark of the nearby cottonwood.

Red-bellied woodpecker

Cardinals flitted back and forth between the bushes and the grass, finding bugs, feeding babies, and chasing other cardinals. Sometimes Cardinal landed on the park bench or in the bbq grill and we wondered what he was looking for there, but neither Dandelion or I wanted to disturb the quiet by asking.

We listened to the orioles singing as they gathered food for their nest. One young male orchard oriole was singing at the top of his lungs and both Dandelion and I wished him luck in finding a mate. We watched herons fly by overhead and turkey vultures wobbling along in the air. A boat went by and stirred up the water and we watched the lake settle back in the calm of the morning.

First-year male orchard oriole (a mature male will be dark orange)

I looked at Dandelion to see if the dew had dried on his leaves and saw he had opened his beautiful petals to the sun. He moved so quietly I hadn’t noticed and was now basking in the warmth, displaying his beauty freely to all who might see. I realized I too had opened to the breeze and the birdsong and the gentleness of the cool morning.

We are not so different, Dandelion and I. We are both impermanent and ever-changing, our lives so brief in the grand scheme of things. We are both sometimes considered “weeds” by those who can’t see our beauty. We both open with gentle encouragement when we aren’t trampled or mowed over. With a little luck, we both provide nourishment to others in our world.

I wanted to stay there with Dandelion, basking in the quiet, but I live the life of a human and he lives the life of a dandelion. So I quietly got up, wishing him a lovely day with no trampling feet and walked slowly back into the life that was mine.

My dandelion encounter reminded me of this beautiful birthday card I received from my grandfather in my teenage years (stuck on a little pole inside a plant). My grandfather owned a nursery and he certainly knew how to help plants thrive.

The weather has stayed beautiful cool, though this also produced some scary storms that thankfully didn’t do too much horrible damage. It will get hot this week but I am so grateful for the extra weeks we had of cool and the beautiful sunrises those conditions produced.

Sunrise June 5, 2022

I watched a blue jay jumping in the grass, a behavior I can’t say I’ve ever noticed before! It always amazes me after all these years how much I still learn every day. Now I know why blue jays are often so bedraggled looking in the morning, they’ve been playing in the dew!

The Baltimore orioles are busy feeding their youngsters in the nest. I love that they take time for singing breaks, as if they need the joy their song brings just as much as I do.

Lots of dew drops this week and then this one where I swear there’s an almost invisible something on the clover leaf middle-right. Someone on my facebook post suggested Tinkerbell and I think that’s my favorite answer!

So many wildflowers too. Little drops of beauty in a swath of green.

May we all find some gentle encouragement in the week ahead.