Wild Flowers, a Picnic, and a Thistle

The girls and I have been noticing wild flowers growing out in the fields around the house.  We decided yesterday to go on a nature walk and see what we could collect!  Kylie Joy brought along her purple Dora pail to put the things we gathered in.  Oh, the excitement as the little pale got fuller and fuller!  My girls love to pick flowers and I love to take photos of flowers! I know to most, these are just weeds, but to us, they are wild flowers!   

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We also found a Mulberry Tree while on our walk.  I snipped off a little bit of it to take home to share with our guys!  Sam had just been asking what all the berries in the trees were, and had, on Monday night, found out they were mulberries.  We had been wanting to try them.  Hmmm... not real sure this is something I would eat often, it tasted, to me, like really sweet grass.  However, Asa did like them and ate all that we had picked and cleaned.  I don't know if he really thought they were good or if it was just the adventure of eating something picked from the wild!

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After eating our mulberries, I gathered our flowers together, put them in a mason jar, gave them a little water, and tied a bow around the neck of the jar.  They were now ready for pics!  I carried them over behind the church.  Their is a door boarded up  back their that is quiet weathered.  I like the look of the weathered wood in the background of my flower pics, plus there is shade back there during the middle of the day.  Kylie followed me and even participated in a few pictures.  Then Hannah came along and eventually the two of them wondered back over to the house.  When I finished up taking photos of our wild flowers I headed back to the house and as I neared the other side I could hear the giggles and talking of  Hannah and Kylie.   This is what I found, minus the flowers, when I rounded the corner of the house...

The girls were having a picnic.  We talk of going for a picnic, but have never gotten around to actually doing it.  They had drug their tote of stuffed animals out into the driveway, each of them had a little chair.  I then began to notice they were having a chocolate picnic.  There were two chocolate pudding cups and in the middle of the table, on their princess plate, that they always fight over, were Reese's Pieces. And, of course, chocolate all over their sweet little faces! 

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Yep, these are my girls!

One more thing before I go.  We also found, while on our nature walk, a beautiful purple flower just a bit smaller than a tennis ball. I was amazed at how pretty this flower was.  It had so much detail.  I carefully snipped it with the clippers and placed it in the pail because I had noticed it was very thorny and prickly.  Last night at church I was talking with Mrs. Kim about our day and mentioned the beautiful flower we had found.  She soon recognized it to be a Thistle.  I had heard of a Thistle before, but did not know what one was. I had also remembered reading the word in the Bible somewhere, so I decided to do a word search and see what was said about a Thistle in God's Word.  I did not have to search far, Genesis 3:18a Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee;, God was talking to Adam after he and Eve had eaten of the fruit they were not to eat.  God cursed the ground and a thistle is part of that curse.  WOW... how could something so beautiful be a curse.  Well, I found out while taking pics of that thing, it bit me, and I still feel it this morning!  This goes to show that looks can be very deceiving!   Now that I know just where a thistle came from, I think I might ought to change the words I chose to put on the above picture of the thistle... what do you think!?!

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This is the front side of the thistle.

This is the back side of the thistle.