Estimated reading time: 3 minute(s)
This week was a gift from God – at just the time we needed it, so I thought I would share some of the stuff that happened on this brief respite.
- We played games! Our family loves board games and card games. So this week we played lots of Uno and other games little boys like to play. Alex at 3 is actually quite good, though his attention remains for only about 1 hand… 🙂
- We drove up a mountain! We found a Wal*Mart within 20 miles of here, so we ventured out having absolutely no idea what lie ahead of us. 🙂 We climbed from an elevation of 6000 ft to over NINE thousand and back down below that within that 20 miles! It was a crazy ride! The boys loved it!
- We are amazed at God’s beautiful creation! From the lake views to the already mentioned mountain vistas to even the much smaller intricacies of a clementine. (A tiny orange) 🙂 The former were overwhelming in size and beauty. The latter was incredible in its design and in the fact that it was made just for us.
The slices contain seeds which are needed to make more, which evolution supposes are there because of nature’s innate desire to continue itself… BUT, what are the little juice sacs for?? How does the acidic citric acid benefit the seed or the orange plant? I don’t think they do. I just had a cool moment of thinking, “This is for ME! He made this for ME.” That was another awesome reminder of how much God cares for us.
- We got to be a family. This one was invaluable as we are grieving the loss of a family member. We have been so supported by our Father, and by his people, and by our family here. But there are still moments when sadness comes to the forefront. It is usually quickly replaced by the deep comfort that we have in trusting our Father. But it has also just been good to spend time together as a family.
- We have great friends. We have great friends not only at home, but all across the country. It has been amazing. But especially this week, when it was greatly needed. When we were dealing with a super hard loss in our lives, our friends supported us completely. They kept our kids, they grieved with us, the just helped us to feel comfortable and not notice how far we were from home. Then they joined us for our last day here on vacation, and again, it was so great to share some more life together. We talk about the simple, everyday stuff. We talk about the deeper stuff of life. We help each other in any way needed at the time. We had everything in common (food, diapers, etc) and no one was in need. HEY! That sounds familiar…. (Acts 2 and 4) 🙂
So, we have great friends. 🙂
It’s been a great week. Tomorrow we embark on one of our longest trips, from Incline Village, NV to Vernonia, OR. (See the Yahoo! Maps directions here! Nice! 🙂
For a quick slideshow experience of our week… click here.
Well actually, regarding the clementine seeds and since you mention what “evolution supposes…”
The little juice packets are actually there as an attractant for a vector that will come, consume the fruit, and deposit the seeds elsewhere so that the plant can generate itself again. So in fact, unless you eat the entire fruit and then defecate outdoors, or you take the seeds and at least distribute them outdoors, you are actually cheating the plant (or interrupting the design/engineering, whichever you prefer)… because, putting the seeds in the trash means they will probably end up in a landfill, which, being an unsuitable growth environment, will never allow the seeds to grow into plants. Just wanted to point out that yes, the non-reproductive parts of the fruit also are there for the benefit of the plant/seed.
-heent
To my evolution-supposing friend… 🙂
I guess this proves my point a bit… not the landfill thing. You’re right. We should eat more seeds and poop in the woods… BUT, besides that…
The juice is not directly for the plant. 🙂 I mean, I see what you are saying, and that is really cool how the juice not only attracts, but even helps the other living things who consume it. But, the plant does not need, nor does the seed need to have this stuff.
Now, you could say that the plant is just SO smart that it knew it would need to attract some giant forest-pooping machine to eat the seed first and then neatly place it somewhere else in some nifty home-made fertilizer pile so that more orange trees could grow, but I will stick with my original conclusion.
God made the juice for me (and bears?) Isn’t it even cooler that when I consume the juice (for me) that there are benefits back to the plant. Seems like a good plan to me…
(and I don’t think no tree came up with it…) 🙂
Hope you don’t mind using your blog as a discussion forum as well…
Again you say the plant and seed do not need the rest of the fruit. If you are looking at it from the perspective of the plant in that it already lives and doesn’t need the fruit it produces to keep living, your “not need” statement is true, for the plant only. However, if you believe reproduction is a needed function of the plant, your “not need” statement is false – the plant would not be able to reproduce without the non-reproductive parts of the fruit for many natural reasons I will bother with only if you like. The seed, however, in most cases, definitely requires the rest of the fruit to complete its “designed” function – reproduction. In fact there are some species for which the seed must actually pass through the digestive tract of an animal (being subjected to the organics of the animal’s systems) or it will not germinate.
It is amazing how many topics we can see very different sides of.
-heent
Indeed, I welcome discussion. But I think we’re kinda saying the same thing, from two different perspectives. You’re right. It is amazing. 🙂
Read my post titled, “http://basicmusic.blogspot.com/2004/11/lenses.html“