Journal

Garden Tour

1 Comment

On Wednesday my Grandma took Maria and I on to a Garden Tour. It was a lovely day, cool with a fresh breeze blowing gently. We rode a school bus (for the first time)  to five different gardens around our city. The gardens ranged in size from a normal backyard to a giant estate, and were very fun to look at. I took a lot of pictures of the flowers we saw, and some of them turned out very well:

garden-tour01

garden-tour02

garden-tour03

garden-tour04

garden-tour05

garden-tour06

garden-tour11

garden-tour13

garden-tour14

This water lily is my favorite.

This water lily is my favorite.

There was a man taking pictures of flowers, and he showed me a couple nice pictures he had taken of bees on flowers.. He asked me if I had any pictures of bees. When I replied I hadn't, he chided me for "Not watching out for those bee pictures." So I stood in front of a patch of coneflowers and waited, hoping to shoot a bee photograph. A few moments later, Maria called my attention to what she thought was a monarch butterfly. I quickly turned my camera in its direction, and as it alighted on a flower, I was able to snap a picture. At the same time, I realized it wasn't a monarch, but a butterfly I had never seen before. Later I found out it was either a Aphrodite Fritillary or a Great Spangled Fritillary. (They are distinguished from each other only by a small marking on the underside of the wings, which I never got to see.)

There was a man taking pictures of flowers, and he showed me a couple nice pictures he had taken of bees on flowers.. He asked me if I had any pictures of bees. When I replied I hadn't, he chided me for "Not watching out for those bee pictures." So I stood in front of a patch of coneflowers and waited, hoping to shoot a bee photograph. A few moments later, Maria called my attention to what she thought was a monarch butterfly. I quickly turned my camera in its direction, and as it alighted on a flower, I was able to snap a picture. At the same time, I realized it wasn't a monarch, but a butterfly I had never seen before. Later I found out it was either a Aphrodite Fritillary or a Great Spangled Fritillary. (They are distinguished from each other only by a small marking on the underside of the wings, which I never got to see.)

garden-tour10

Daniel the Ant Hunter

1 Comment

When our home was invaded by a swarm of ravenous ants, Daniel rushed to our defense. Armed with his trusty ping-pong paddle and comb, he fought and vanquished each ant single handed!

daniel-and-the-ants1

daniel-and-the-ants2

daniel-and-the-ants3

daniel-and-the-ants5

daniel-and-the-ants6

"Did I get it?"

Here at Last!

Leave a Comment

Dominic Gregory Frederes was born around five thirty AM Thursday morning, and weighed eight pounds and fourteen ounces. Praise the Lord for his safe delivery!

img_4058

Mother Mallard

1 Comment

A mother duck has chosen our backyard to build her nest, and she’s been sitting on it for a week or two. I counted at least nine eggs when she got off the nest for a moment, but I think there were more that I couldn’t see. Everyone here is excited for them to hatch.

img_3948

Symbols of Holy Week-Part 2

Leave a Comment

The passion flower is an unusual and extraordinary flower, and many of its parts are used to represent different aspects of the Crucifixion. This makes it a wonderful symbol for holy week, especially Good Friday. The tendrils represent the whips used in the Scourging, and the hundreds of filaments surrounding the center of the flower are associated with the thorns that pierced Our Lord’s sacred brow. There are five anthers which stand for the five wounds, and the three stigmas surmounting them resemble three nails. Even the leaves, which are long and pointed, stand for the lance which was used to pierce the side of Christ.

passionflower2

img_3939

Symbols of Holy Week-Part One

Leave a Comment

I have always been fascinated by the history of the myriad of symbols of the Holy Faith. Great paintings often portray Our Lord and the saints holding one or more of these emblems, and much more can be understood about the meaning of the painting from decoding these items. One example is in Botticelli’s ‘Madonna of the Pomegranate’ a painting that shows Our Lady and the Child Jesus hold a pomegranate. The pomegranate had several meanings based on the multitude of seeds it carries hidden inside, including the many afflictions of the Passion and the fruitfulness of the Resurrection. Using this one symbol, Botticelli remind the viewers of his work of the Child’s future.

palm-sunday3

Holy Week is especially rich in symbols, two of which were mentioned in yesterday’s Gospel of the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. The first to come to mind is the palms strewn on the road in front of Jesus as he entered Jerusalem. Palms have been symbols of victory since ancient times, and Romans would give them to those victorious in battle, and later they were painted on the graves of early Christian martyrs to show their triumph over evil. As the Jews waved the palm branches in the air and laid them on the earth, they may have been expressing their hope that the Messiah would lead them in the conquest of their enemies.

palm-sunday1

However, Christ had not come to be a military leader, and this he announced with the very means of  his arrival in Jerusalem. He chose to ride a donkey, which in those times represented peace since messengers would ride upon donkeys when conveying tiding of peace, preferring the faster horse in times of war.

palm-sunday2

I will post about more Holy Week symbols that I find interesting later!