Butterflies, Bluebirds And Dead Frogs 04/14/21

Mistletoe State Park, Appling, Georgia

The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. But God said to him, “Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned (counted). I will make the son of the maidservant into a nation also, because he is your offspring. ~ Genesis 21:11-13 Don’t you wonder why God chose to raise a nation from Ishmael? I do! However, His promise is explicit – Isaac is the child of The Promise, and so are his descendants. God already has a plan in place to bless all the world through the offspring of Isaac, culminating in Jesus Christ. God cared for Ishmael because he was Abraham’s son, but he was not the child of The Promise.

It’s good my mother put me in baton classes as a child, because I put those rudimentary skills to use today, as Blaine and I took turns nearly constantly swiping away silken strings across the trails. Yuk! But it added to the already stimulating aerobic exercise, because today, we actually hiked some hills. Albeit small ones.

And here’s a hiking strategy for you to try. I’ve learned that hiking hills is easier (at least for me) if I look down. If I do that, the ground looks level and I don’t fall into the “Ugh! I still have that far to go!” defeatist mindset. Just a tip. 😊

We saw many beautiful things today. We saw some highly unusual things (at least to us) today. And we enjoyed a lovely day soaking up God’s intricate creation!

They say the Park is named for all mistletoe that grows around here, but we looked up what it looks like, and searched the trees during our hike, and didn’t notice any. Maybe in a different part of the Park?

We watched as this Tiger Swallowtail butterfly alighted, only to discover that it was on a dead frog!
As were a bunch of weird looking beetles.
After a minute of research, it seems that butterflies drain nutrients from dead stuff – and animal excrement.
Who knew something so beautiful would eat such gross stuff?!?

I’ll bet there won’t be anything left by tomorrow.
God’s clean-up crew is on it! (as they say)

It’s my turn to make figure 8’s. : )
Looks like Scotty’s wanting to beam us up! lol

This is Rock Dam. Not a very creative name, but appropriate anyway. : )

Look how that tree fell and split the other right in two!

On the map, this is called “The Sitting Tree”.
I was going to get up there, but without a step stool,
or Blaine willing to get on all fours, I was just too short. : )
Such interesting tree growth, though!

This picture was taken to remind me to tell about what we found here.
We kept hearing these very loud splashes, so we went to investigate.
It turned out to be giant fish splashing around!
We saw several, but couldn’t get a picture.
The lake here is known for it’s large mouth bass fishing, so we’re thinking that’s what it was.
Pretty cool!

We actually saw a few dead moles along the trail as well. Nothing was interested in eating them though.
I know. I put weird pictures in our posts. But that’s what keeps it interesting, right?
You just never know what’s going to show up! Just like our explorations!

Yep. The trail really, truly does go that way. We are NOT going that way.
Fortunately, with Blaine’s keen sense of map reading and memory and all things spatial,
he knew a way around it, so we did that. : )

Look who was trying to hide in the leaves, and doing a pretty good job of it!

And there was so much climbing up and down, I certainly need to take a shower today. Well, that and the fact that it was 89⁰ today and I had to spray Deet all over me to keep the biting gnats and mosquitos off me.

So, we returned home after our 3 ½ hour, 7-mile trek and our boots and socks are full of dirt, so we sit at the picnic table to clean them off before going inside, when suddenly, the bluebird of happiness lands on our coach’s side mirror!