I did not know there were so many types of dragonflies until I did some research for the Dragonfly Art Call. The Art Call was for the Hospice Foundation in Minnesota. They want to make greeting cards, stationary, and the like to give out to the families. “The popular fable of the dragonfly has long been used to explain death and the hope of heaven for anyone with or without a particular faith.”
The guidelines were to make a simple design of a single dragonfly featuring greens and blues, the colors of the Hospice Foundation. The painting above was my entry.
The last few weeks I have been going through and cleaning up board games to give to the fire department, making sure all the playing pieces were there, and could not escape the boxes.
I also baked my first flatbread. It was ok, but didn’t rate passing on the recipe.
Are you ready for Pandemic Thanksgiving? How are you going to celebrate it? Anyone ‘Zooming’? Tell me what your plans are in the ‘comments’ section below. I would love to hear about your creative ideas!
Later, same day…
We have garden tomatoes in the freezer and jalapenos in the garden. I wanted to make some salsa. We didn’t have cellantro so I had to wait until we got some. Meanwhile, I tasted a jalapeno and it tasted like a bell pepper, no heat. So I decided that they wouldn’t work. We do, however, have several chili pequine bushes. I know they are HOT. I wasn’t sure how many of those peppers to use, so… I put a layer of chili pequine peppers in my measuring cup with a cup full of water and put it into the microwave for two minutes. Did YOU know that chili pequine peppers pop and foam up like cranberries? I didn’t. I opened the microwave and out shot a blast of pepper spray! It went right into my face and lungs. I coughed for a long time. The pepper water went into the refrigerator for the night. I will continue the recipe this weekend and hope for the best. I will be adding the pepper water 1/4 teaspoon at a time!
Next day…
Ready to finish the salsa! I tasted the pepper water and was surprised that there was NO heat or flavor to it!!! It tasted like a cold glass of water. Now what!
So I made a casserole that tasted like Tex-Mex food and used the salsa to flavor it.
Lesson learned… Check the heat of your fresh peppers before you begin.
Amazing Art
soapbox - kudos - wow
WOW - Beautiful Dragonflies !
"Six of 7000 Species - NationalGeographic.com"
The Dragonfly
Once, in a little pond, in the muddy water under the lily pads,
there lived a little water beetle in a community of water
beetles. They lived a simple and comfortable life in the pond
with few disturbances and interruptions.
Once in a while, sadness would come to the community when one of
their fellow beetles would climb the stem of a lily pad and
would never be seen again. They knew when this happened; their
friend was dead, gone forever.
Then, one day, one little water beetle felt an irresistible urge
to climb up that stem. However, he was determined that he would
not leave forever. He would come back and tell his friends what
he had found at the top.
When he reached the top and climbed out of the water onto the
surface of the lily pad, he was so tired, and the sun felt so
warm, that he decided he must take a nap. As he slept, his body
changed and when he woke up, he had turned into a beautiful
blue-tailed dragonfly with broad wings and a slender body
designed for flying.
So, fly he did! And, as he soared he saw the beauty of a whole
new world and a far superior way of life to what he had never
known existed.
Then he remembered his beetle friends and how they were thinking
by now he was dead. He wanted to go back to tell them, and
explain to them that he was now more alive than he had ever been
before. His life had been fulfilled rather than ended.
But, his new body would not go down into the water. He could
not get back to tell his friends the good news. Then he
understood that their time would come, when they, too, would
know what he now knew. So, he raised his wings and flew off
into his joyous new life!