4/4/12

I Love Dandelions

Dandelions-2
Dandelions-2 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Dandelions are my favorite flowers. Much to the consternation of some of my neighbors over the years, I've never used any sort of weed killer or lawn service or anything to get rid of them. I'm going for a more naturalized look, or at least that's what I tell myself.

Every time I see dandelions, I feel my faith in God renewed, because I remember one of my favorite stories about dandelions, which is also one of my favorite stories about my cousin David. When he was about four or five years old and I was a year younger, my Uncle Ken, Aunt Carol, cousin Kenny Allen (as he was called then) and cousin David came to visit us when we lived in East St. Louis, Illinois.

Driving along in the car going sightseeing (the Arch, the caverns, a steamboat ride on the Mississippi in our sailor hats), we passed a field of dandelions.  Upon passing the field, David said, "Wowww, those sure are BEE-YOO-TEE-FULL flowers!" My aunt replied, "Oh Davey, those aren't flowers, those are just weeds." To which David replied, "Well then, God sure must love us to give us such bee-yoo-tee-full weeds!"

Field full of dandelions.
Field full of dandelions. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I also love seeing the bright yellow flowers sprinkled across the lawn in the spring, especially when they're accompanied by little purple violets. Every year I say that I'm going to pick a ton of the tiny violets and candy them, but I never do.

Violets
Violets (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When I was a little girl, we used to take the dandelions and put them under each other's chins and twirl them around. If the yellow of the dandelion reflected on the skin under our chins, it meant that we liked boys. When I got older, I used to make dandelion perfume by placing them in containers of water and letting them steep in the sun, then removing the flowers and giving containers of the "perfume" to everyone I knew. It did not smell good, nor like perfume.

Of course, later in the summer we spent hours chasing the dandelion fluff that had gone to seed, making wishes and blowing them back into the wind.

Dandelion in seed The field is littered with d...
Dandelion in seed The field is littered with dandelions shedding their wind blown seeds. One of many photographs I took to show the process in action, none of which succeeded in illustrating the process. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Though I think the thing that I love best of all about dandelions is the bouquets of them I receive from Miss Sunshine, when she lovingly picks them and presents them to me with a flourish and a heart full of love.






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4 comments:

  1. I love this post. My five year old often sees the beauty that I just walk right past. Just this winter I was reminded that each snowflake is different. I forgot all about that until my five year old was outside catching them in her hands.

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  2. We had dandelions in our backyard growing up, and I loved to blow them into the wind. I also used to make bracelets and necklaces out of those little white flower/weeds that grew alongside them, but I can't remember what they were called. Hmm...

    Thanks for stopping by my blog! I LOVE your background!

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  3. Oh, what a fun post! Can't believe we both picked this theme with all of the D word possibilities! ha. Cute stories, too!

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  4. Lovely pics :)--always loved Dandelions!

    Look forward to your challenge run…
    --Damyanti, Co-host A to Z Challenge April 2012

    Twitter: @AprilA2Z
    #atozchallenge

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