Wednesday, March 8…Standing Water (Soul Asylum)

    Changed up our walking route…walked on the frontage road because someone was kind enough to hide a geocache about a mile down and I wanted to find it.  Found it, logged it and continued on so we could get at least three miles in.  Sunny, warm morning…more typical of the March Arizona weather we’ve encountered in years past.  Hope it sticks around.
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      Wildflowers are popping…seeing lots of yellow, purple and orange flowers along the road. They seem especially prolific this year and the desert floor is covered in a fine green carpet…must be the result of the recent rains.

   There’s still standing water out in the desert fields and ditches along Picacho Hwy which surprises me.  Haven’t had major rain for about a week and the sun has been out…wouldn’t the ground just suck all that moisture in like a sponge? This question has been nagging at me since we got out here and tonight I finally did a Google search.  Found an article that was rich with information that was hard to wade through, but I think the answer to my question lies in the soil composition of the desert and the creation of something called desert pavement which makes it hard for the desert to absorb water.  Hence, the flash flooding.   

   The last remnant of the puddle alongside the bushes by our campsite finally dried up yesterday.  The ground there is clay which apparently absorbs water very slowly.  I think the sun was largely responsible for drying up the puddle.

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   Did some odds and ends around camp then took a bike ride to Gu-Atchi Trading Post to get nachos for a late lunch.  

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   There are 17 known species of hummingbirds that reside or migrate through Arizona.  The differences are hard to spot on these fast, tiny birds but with the help of a camera, I try.  Normally the feeders on the tree are shaded so it’s hard to distinguish the little details of the hummingbirds in real time. However, tonight I did see a white band around the throat of a green hummingbird, so I looked up ‘green hummingbird with white neck’.  By comparing a picture I took with what I found online, I narrowed it down to a black-chinned hummingbird.  My first thought was, “Wait…birds have chins?”   According to the website birdsoutsidemywindow.org, A bird's chin is exactly where you'd expect it to be — just under its beak — but of course birds' chins don't stick out like ours do.  Huh.

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   Sky is clear enough for Kim to be out by the telescope.  He took some pictures last night but hasn’t processed them yet.  He was dismayed by the dust particles noticeable on his darks so he didn’t hold out much hope that the nebula pictures would be clean. He cleaned the dust from all relevant pieces and hopes for a better outcome tonight.  

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40 Days of Lent challenge:  Put on your FAVORITE worship song and connect with God. Read this text out loud to Kim at 7:30 a.m., at the moment it arrived on my phone. As he was saying, “Favorite? I don’t know that I have a favorite because there are so many”, the air was filled with the opening strains of the Statler Brothers version of How Great Thou Art, which is Kim’s favorite version of that song. And, of course, how can a person not sing along with the Statlers?  A mini concert in the Bakker’s camper ensued and I’d say there was definite connection with God in that moment.  But that was Kim’s choice…

   I agreed with Kim about picking a favorite…I needed to sit with this one a bit. It all came together on our walk.  I was listening to an episode of the podcast ‘Where Ya From?’ hosted by Rasool Berry. The guest was Debbye Turner Bell, a winner of the 1990 Miss America pageant.  Being a pageant winner was just part of her story…the bigger part detailed her faith journey and how she went from praying to win to really knowing that she was okay with whatever outcome God had for her in this pursuit, which freed her to just enjoy the process.  At some point in that discussion Rasool says, “It’s one thing to have enough faith to believe that God can…but it’s another thing to just trust God for you, for your purpose, for your identity, for everything and just say that I’m just stepping in the will of the one who brings me here and whatever happens, it is well with my soul.” 

   Bingo!  That was my challenge song!  ‘It Is Well With My Soul’ is on my list of favorites and hearing those words spoken in this context was spine tingling. When we sing this song in church it always seems that the congregation turns up the volume of their joined voices for the chorus which is so powerful.

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