This Owasco sunset is beautiful beyond words. Owasco is one of the Finger Lakes in New York State, in the United States. Our family took us there for a vacation in 2019. The photo was taken from the lakeside beneath the house where we stayed.
Great family memories last for ever.
The RHS Garden Wisley in Surry, England is one of the World’s Great Gardens. In the gardens is a vast glasshouse with three climatic zones. The glasshouse is home to a breath takingly beautiful collection of orchids.
Our good friends in England took us to the gardens last year.
Here are some pictures I took during that inspiring visit.
I don’t know the names of the orchids but perhaps words cannot do justice to their beauty!
Please enjoy the wonder of God’s creation.
Please scroll down. There are 6 pictures
Thank you for coming to this site.
(Affiliate disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I, John Bartels, may earn commission, at no extra cost to you, from qualifying purchases from Amazon.com)
Consider the beautiful world in which we live: the giant red woods in California, the misty Bug Sir coastline south of San Francisco, the surging ocean below the Golden Gate Bridge, the distant snow seen from Lake Tahoe during summer, a tranquil sunset over one of the Finger Lakes, the vastness of the Northern Rim of the Grand Canyon, the endless expanse of the desert in Nevada, the calm and beauty of flowers in the Cotswolds, walks in the English country side, the stillness the Matopo bush in Zimbabwe, the calm sea at a small deserted bay in Corfu that brought to life Greek mythology, the smoking thunder of the Victoria Falls, the view from Table Mountain at sunset, the bush in Southern Africa which silently watches you, warning you that you are not alone ….
What a wonderful world.
My wife and I are so grateful that we have been able to experience all this.
How grateful we both are that God has created us with the ability to enjoy His creation so much.
Praise the Lord
The insight that God has not only created our beautiful world but also created in us the ability to appreciate it, came from reading “What are we doing here?” by Marilynne Robinson, the Pulitzer Prize winning author.
“It is not fair calling Australia “the land of the Kookaburra”. What a cheek! I am a beautiful swamp hen. I also live in Australia. And look at the fantastic way that I walk. Eat your heart out, Kookaburra!”😊
“OK, now I have got that off my chest, look below at these four pictures from the land of the Swamp Hen.” Please scroll down
1
Below
Kangaroo Paws
2
Below
More Kangaroo Paws
3
Below
Wild Wattle
4
Below
“I am still waiting for a turn to show you some pictures. I am also from Australia, you know!”
Thanks again to our friends in Australia for the pictures
Australia is not only the land of the kookaburra. It also has magnificent scenery. There are also many beautiful flowers.
Today my wife and her Australian friend were chatting about this and that and they got onto the subject of the flowers in her Australian garden. We asked her to send some pictures, which she did with some comments.
Here are some of the pictures with comments.
Please scroll down – there are 4 pictures below’
(Did I hear the kookaburra say “The flowers in this garden are fair dinkum”?)
Below
1
“A hedge of azaleas at our front door”
Below
2
Xmas cactus
Below
3
“Bromeliads…not unlike the stag horn ….”
Below
4
“That show off kookaburra got in first to introduce the pictures of the flowers. We were busy waiting for fisherman to clean their catch. Our turn, next time.”
This might interest you
The Obesa Nursery in Graaff-Reinet
and
Some famous advice from the 5th Century AD https://johnbartels.com/2020/06/07/the-salutation-of-the-dawn/
A friend recently reminded me how much he loves the Cotswolds and how pleasant it would be to live there. There is so much to enjoy. The small villages with interesting shops. Gardens that look like pictures in garden magazines. The yellow/brown stone houses which are super photogenic. And the area is full of history, monuments and old churches.
Our family took us there last year. We had a wonderful time. Here are some pictures, taken in the Cotswolds.
Please scroll down – there are 8 pictures.
Thank you.
The pictures speak for themselves.
Bourton-on -the Water
A Burford Garden
St. Edward’s Church, Stow-on-the Wold
“Did I hear something?”
How old are the two yew trees? Who knows. Apparently yew trees grow for a very, very long time. And the Church? We are told that people have worshiped on this site for over a thousand years’ Welcome to history in the Cotswolds!
One of the many interesting shops at Bourton-on -the Water
Stag at Broadway-Middle Hill in the Cotswolds
More of the Stag
Spotted in the car park in Burford.
I cannot describe the magnificent roar she made as she pulled off.
And yes, the owner was justifiably very proud of her!
That beautiful Burford Garden again – It is next to a nursery!
On 16 February 2018 we were fortunate to visit the very famous Obesa Cactus Nursery in Graaff-Reinet, South Africa. The owner Johan was very welcoming and informative.
The extensive display of Cacti was really beautiful. Stunning in fact.
I will let some of my photos speak for themselves. Enjoy!
Keep scrolling down!
Keep scrolling down!
Keep scrolling down!
Keep scrolling down!
There are many, many more beautiful cacti at the nursery.
A 100% worthwhile visit. Don’t miss it if you are near Graaff-Reniet.
No, this is not a recently discovered painting by Turner! It is a photo taken by our friend, artist Professor Estelle Marais. The picture is of sunrise over the harbour in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, on 7 June 2020.
Silhouetted against the rising sun is a harbour crane, affectionately described by Estelle as “The Harbour Giraffe walking into the sun this morning”.
Estelle always finds the welcoming dawn encouraging and inspiring.
This wonderful photograph is a powerful reminder of Kalidasa’s greatly loved poem “Look to this Day”:
Scroll down below the picture to read the famous poem:
Look to this day:
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence.
The bliss of growth,
The glory of action,
The splendour of achievement
Are but experiences of time.
For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision;
And today well-lived, makes
Yesterday a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well therefore to this day;
Such is the salutation to the ever-new dawn!
Thank you Kalidasa and Estelle
“The Smoke that Thunders” is a translation of what the local people call the Victoria Falls.
As the mighty Zambezi River in central Africa hurls itself into the deep abyss there is indeed the sound of thunder.
And the smoke? That is the spray going high into the sky like real smoke from a long line of fires. This “smoke” can be seen from miles away.
The spray coming down creates a 24/7 rain forest where you get drenched without a rain coat.
One of the wonders of the world? Of course! But I am biased. This magnificent display of nature’s power is in the land where I was born: Southern Rhodesia (since renamed Zimbabwe).
I first saw the smoke and heard the thunder when I was 9 years old in 1953.
I will never forget seeing it for the first time.
What a wonderful experience.What a wonderful country.
The beauty of the Cotswolds in south central England is genuinely beyond description. We were taken there by the family in the autumn of 2019. It was an unforgettable holiday.
This is a picture I took from a small bridge straddling the River Windrush in the village of Bourton-on-the-Water. No, there are not chocolates under the picture!
The small shops were interesting to visit.
A striking feature of the area is the yellow stone used to build many of the buildings.
It was also admirable to be in a village that was clean and neat.
The flowers in the villages were very beautiful and it was already autumn.
On the left is a garden pathway in the village of Burford, known as “The Gateway to the Cotswolds”. And, it is not even spring!
I can only imagine how the flowers in the village celebrate the arrival of spring. What a burst of blazing colour there must be.
johnbartels.com 