We Must Have Rain in order to Have Rainbows.

I had to rush outside last night and  take a photo of the beautiful complete rainbow that shone in the sky after a heavy downpour. It looked so beautiful and reminded me that there is always beauty if you look for it.
The rain and the warmth is certainly giving me (and everyone else) plenty of work in keeping up with the lawn mowing but just think how the worms, the yabbies, the plants and the trees are loving it and feeling so relieved that they have some water.
The drought may be over officially but don't forget that one year of rain does not make up for fourteen of drought. I do not understand why water restrictions have been lifted in Melbourne.
Melbourne businesses and residents should remember that in order for them to have water they are taking it away from other places. To bring water down from the Murray means less in that river and its systems. To have it piped down from the Thompson dam means that there is little flow in the Thompson River. The beauty and the ecosystems of the Wonthaggi area have to be affected in ways that cannot be known yet in order for cities to have water. Would those people who use the water with little or no thought be happy if a huge structure was built in  their street to take care of some rural area? I don't think so! All of us need to be more aware and grateful for what we have.
My daughter gives an example of this awareness as follows: think about the resources required to make a takeaway coffee cup. You need the man and the trucks etc. to cut down a tree and take it to the processing plant. Then you need the many people required to put it through the processing plant to make it into paper and then send the paper off to the processing plant to make it in to a cup and coat it with plastic so that it is heat and liquid proof. You will then need a transport and driver to take it to the coffee shop and then you will need someone to make the coffee for you. So far all of this has probably been a process that has taken many hours over weeks and now you have your take away coffee! It will take you all of maybe 10-15 minutes to drink it then you will throw it away. This is why you have people talking of sustainability. How long can we use all this energy and time and cost for so little reason? That is not taking into account the further cost of taking the throw away cup to the tip and how long it takes to break down in the soil.
If you do enjoy a cup of coffee think seriously about using a 'Keep Cup'. To buy these go to the following link: http://www.keepcupstore.com/ . Thank you for being aware and taking care of this wonderful blue planet.

Well I have got off track from rainbows but you know it is all a great big web that we are in whether we like it or not! So enjoy and we will talk again soon. Have a great day.

Marbles - Tom Bowlers?

This was sent to me by email and I loved it so much that I wanted to share it with everybody!

The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps it's the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it's the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable.

A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the garage with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as a typical Saturday morning turned into one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time. Let me tell you about it:

I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning swap net. Along the way, I came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice. You know the kind; he sounded like he should be in the broad casting business. He was telling whom-ever he was talking with something about "a thousand marbles." I was intrigued and stopped to listen to what he had to say

"Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you're busy with your job. I'm sure they pay you well but it's a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. It's too bad you missed your daughter's "dance recital" he continued. "Let me tell you something that has helped me keep my own priorities." And that's when he began to explain his theory of a "thousand marbles."

"You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years.

"Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime. Now, stick with me, Tom, I'm getting to the important part.

It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail", he went on, "and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays." "I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy. So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round up 1000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside a large, clear plastic container right here in the shack next to my gear."

"Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away. I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life.

There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight."

"Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure that if I make it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time."

"It was nice to meet you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band. This is a 75 Year old Man, K9NZQ, clear and going QRT, good morning!"

You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to work on the next club newsletter.

Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. "C'mon honey, I'm taking you and the kids to breakfast." "What brought this on?" she asked with a smile. "Oh, nothing special, it's just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. And hey, can we stop at a toy store while we're out? I need to buy some marbles.

A friend sent this to me, so I to you, my friend.

And so, as one smart bear once said..."If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you." - Winnie the Pooh.

 

New Life Abounds -or does it?

The new year's growth on the walnut tree.

It has finally warmed up and the grass is growing too quickly! The new leaves are coming through on the walnut tree. Well the catkins - the male and female parts that will become the leaves and the nuts. The wonder of nature. I love to be in a space where I can observe these things.
You know when you think about it there is nothing new in the world. When the tree closes down for the winter it already has the new buds and flowers and leaves within it. That is the true wonder that man doesn't really understand. Nor should he in my opinion.
If you think about it we have the same capacity within us. We can blossom and grow at any time that we choose or we can close down and hibernate within ourselves. We still have that capacity to blossom and grow though even if we choose to hide it. It is all within us and we all have different 'flowers' or 'seeds' or 'nuts' or whatever it is that is our particular talent or passion or personality trait even.
I had the profound pleasure of being contacted by a wonderful person who was my best friend and my 'sister' when I was in my early teens. She and all of her family nurtured and supported me at a time when I desperately needed it and my memories of that time are all of laughter and a loving family atmosphere. See they are the seeds of happy, carefree and sunny times that have been hidden within me for more than forty years and now they are blossoming forth again.
Life is an amazing and wonderful journey that is sometimes difficult and sometimes easy, but if you allow it and don't fight it, always interesting. Have a great day watching your hidden seeds blossom forth.