Iris...

A little treat I allowed myself this week, between the rainfall and the muggy days and the threats of severe weather giving way to chilly mornings and brilliant sunshine. A photo that really needs to be done in flat light. Several years of taking pictures in the gardens teaches one about the value of a cloudy day in capturing these little treasures of God's world. Had I tried to take this in the bright sunlight, I would have lost some of the deep color to reflection and shadows and who knows what else. This is about as close to the real thing as the gentle breeze would let me come. I'm not sure that the bloom was ever truly still, as its foot-long stem just begs it to sway with the slightest puff of wind, but at least the lens was fast enough to capture that second and freeze it in time.

We have several varieties of Louisiana iris that occupy the fringes of our beautifully disguised retention pond behind the VEC, and like all of the blooming plants at Bayou Bend, each blooms according to its variety - meaning to say that they don't all bloom at once. Our visitors don't always understand this bloom phase-in and phase-out, and that the azaleas don't all bloom on a synchronized, magical schedule.

Just as human beings don't always "bloom" according to a pre-set schedule... I'm thinking that, for parents, that is something we need to learn early on - like learning to photograph in flat light. We need to be vigilant, and educate ourselves, and keep lines of communication open, be patient, ... and pray.