ROADSIDE TIGER LILIES

The roadsides are decorated with orange tiger lilies.  Yesterday we went with our friends for a day drive some 40 miles away.  Us girls are always on the ready for photo ops, and this was one.  Notice the three layers.....the bottom green grass, the orange flowers in the center, and the green bushes in the background.....

Tiger Lilies 
Along the Roadside

Even though orange is my least favorite color, every year I wait for the Tiger Lilies to appear.  At home, they came and grew uninvited in our back yard.  I always felt that was sweet of them.  

 

The Tiger Lily is native to Asia....China, Japan, Korea.  They have bright orange flowers with black spots that resemble a tiger's skin.   

In Asia, the flower is often gifted to women on their birthdays or wedding day, because the flower represents 'a bringer of sons.'  It's been the Eastern custom to favor boys in the family--although this value is changing with every new generation.  Thank Heaven.

Although the birth flower of May is the Lily of the Valley, lilies in various forms (whether Tiger, Calla or Orientals), are also associated with the month of May.  People born in May are known to be kind-hearted, compassionate, emotional and strong-willed. 

My personal all-time favorite flowers are the ones that grow in the wild.  From the tiny Trillium that first arrives in spring to the Tiger Lily in July, flowers of all colors are Nature's gifts that help bring joy to our lives.  We tend to forget that color is a phenomenon.  Imagine if we lived in a black and white world.  Yesterday on our day drive, we commented about the sky's shade of blue.  Honestly, I'd be hard-pressed to come up with a word that could adequately describe it.  That's how out-of-this-world amazing it was.  Oh, there were other dark clouds, too, but we chose to feast our eyes on the blue. 

The recent heavy rains left puddles of water in some of the corn fields.  The usual canoeing and kayaking of the rivers is out of the question this Fourth of July weekend.  Some rivers have banned water sports.  One kayaker on a local river lost his life earlier in the season.  

Our memory album is filled with memories of time spent boating, water skiing, fishing, tubing, canoeing, sandbar camping.  We couldn't wait for Friday afternoon.  We'd have our stuff packed so we could leave right after work and not return until late Sunday afternoon.  One of my memories is sitting around the campfire at night and having a barge go by.  We'd wave and the workers in the tug boat would blow a horn and shine a bright search light back on us.  Nothing in the world was better than sitting around a campfire with friends and spending a miserable night trying to sleep in a tent.  As crazy as it was, that's how much we enjoyed it!  

Summertime is a parade of wild perennials.  The word 'wild' is a word that's not used as much as it used to be.  To me it suggests being 'untamed' and free to be themselves.  There are no boundaries to where they can grow and sustain a peaceful season.  The untamed ones must feel so happy when someone stops the car and takes a picture of them.  Life is filled with little circles, isn't it?  The flowers bring us joy, we take pictures of them and pass the pictures on so others can enjoy them.  They say that Nature loves circles.