Combined Beauty pageant

Posted byGary FultzPosted inabundant life, accomplishment, adventure, Build Faith, cold, devotional, devotional thoughts, eternal, GaryFultz Blog, God in Nature, Inner Peace, intentional, Jesus Christ, Know God, knowing God, nature pictures, outdoor adventure, outdoor scenery, perspective, Photography, purpose in life, quality of life, snow conditions, snowing, solitude, spiritual adventure, spiritual food, Spiritual Perspective, Spiritual picture Truths, story telling., walk with God, Winter prepared

Sunday thought: God combined fall and winter. I think He loves creative beauty and wants us to enjoy those moments. Even the micro fleeting beauty of a reflection in a raindrop can be enjoyed should we pause to do so. A pause to enjoy gives us pause to delve deeper into who our creator is and could be to us. Click to enlarge and enjoy clicking through the slide show.

The sun came out and all returned to fall by the end of the day. I hope you enjoyed this odd event if only a little through some picture sharing. I posted a devotional thought with the best fall colors on our place on “Gods Ways are Different” last night.

This was, in a way, a walk with God. Have a great Sunday. I hope it is well between you and the Lord our creator.

Drop a water reflecting everything around it. Another drop frozen in time

Gary

The moon picture (featured image) was taken by a Nebraska cornfield this past week on my travels as well as the one on this previous post.

Published by Gary Fultz

Outdoors Man, Hunter, Fisherman, Guide, Writer / Author, Photographer, Public Speaker, Musician, Song Writer, Story Teller, Follower Of Jesus. Love God and family and total strangers

96 thoughts on “Combined Beauty pageant”

    1. Our section of the country has been colder this year. from winter through now. A few heat waves not lasting long. Fall leaves have hung on longer as it was a bit drier after august, but cooler temps than normal. Lots of beauty though.

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    1. I think often of what awaits us Fred. I also wonder how many subtle hints the Lord gives us that we could never get here but will have fun putting the pieces together there.

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    2. October is always a strange month here. Today the high is 36f and in a couple days will be mid 50’s. If it wasn’t so windy today I would take the boat out for some fresh fish. I guess catching up on a couple hundred emails with some hot chocolate is good too.

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    1. Funny David. I was actually looking for a hooting owl in a nearby tree to silhouette against the moon. The crows were somewhere else as it was quite dark at the time. I took about 20 nice pictures each taking 30 seconds on a tripod. Nothing was willing to model.

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    1. I think I was on overload with amazement as I took pictures Deb. The bad news is I didn’t really have time to use a tripod for some of the pictures as it was snowing and blowing. I had to shoot fast and then protect the camera. The visual was crazy amazing and I hoped to get a small but good sample of what was out there visually.
      I did think of a lot of picture sermons as well. here’s my short version of a sermon…
      Nature is in constant shout out mode that there is a God who made it all and He is interested in taking care of us on his terms. We cannot get away with bending the laws of nature. The weather happens ready or not. If we die out there dust to dust helped by worms happens. Snow is cold and wind mixed with snow, colder. If we want to see the stars and moon we have to go outside at night. So, there are conditions to meeting and being in a relationship with our creator God. Lucky for us it’s shown in nature and spelled out by God in his word.
      And, yes, I have 50 more points that could be made…I bet you do as well.

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      1. Gary! I love this. We could write sermons all winter on what God says to us through nature. But these photos! Such inspiration, as you have just shown, as both poet and pastor, needs to be expounded on. I won’t go as far to say it’s better than church but then why not? Well…because it’s best not to compare. Each holds its own unique beauty and profundity. I just love the creativity of the Spirit!

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    2. Ah, church. yes. Do you have a couple hours to ….??
      The heavens declare the Glory of God, we should as well. We all seem to need a prompt from somewhere. maybe, just maybe, our relationship with God gets so good just about anything, anyone everywhere can prompt us to glorify the Lord in some way. I’m still at the stage of needing a beautiful sunrise…sigh.

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  10. Beautiful, Gary! I like the one of the red berries in the snow. I know I have taken similar versions of the same. I also like the last photo – the one with the deck, the snow and the fall colors. Comforting to think of time in nature as a “walk with God.”

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    1. I’m with you Betty. I look for the red cranberries in the woods in the snow as they light up the woods by the low land. A mouthful also has a startling strong but nice taste while frozen. It must be the setting as I’m not sure frozen cranberry shakes would go over well.

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  11. Such blessings and gratitude to be found in the simple but beautiful natural world around us. Thank you for sharing your images, Gary. Prayers are needed in my home state in Australia where many people are dealing with the trauma of flooding due to one of the wettest springs in decades. The ground is so saturated, the water has nowhere to go. Nature is a great reminder of how we are not the ones in control! Lynn

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      1. We are on high ground on our 25 acres and not near a major river. But it is so wet underfoot here. We just received photos via text from a friend who doesn’t live too far away and the ensuing fiasco. One visitor managed to bog his car because he went off the driveway. The RACV road assistance attended, and he got bogged. Next call out was for a flat tray truck to help who then got bogged. I think there was another truck involved and they got bogged. The final picture shows a large digger getting them all out! Nice to meet another fellow Aussie too! Lynn

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    2. You are so right Lynn. The completely wild beauty of nature is even there while wrecking lives. The force of nature so much more than we can imagine until we experience it. My wife and I were camping in the wilderness with 3 other couples 22 years ago in 100+ mph winds. That storm took down millions of trees. where we were, whole large areas of trees were snapped of and the tops blown 50 feet before landing. I will keep your area of people in my prayers for safety and for drawing closer to the Lord.

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      1. Much appreciated Gary. The amount of rain expected again this weekend has been downgraded so hopefully those done river will get a reprieve. You were literally like John the Baptist wandering in the wilderness by the sounds of it! Lynn

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    1. You are welcome. We happen to live where it get’s cold enough for the sap to quit supplying the tree leaves that lower temperatures trigger in the fall season. The leaves dry up and lose their green color. The chlorophyll breaks down, the green color disappears, and the yellow to orange colors become visible and give the leaves part of their fall splendor.. Those are the natural colors of the leaves finally exposed. Everyone in the fall season here is a good photographer (except on windy days).

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    1. Thankyou Crissy. The ironic part (God’s sense of humor), My first really good camera was also given to me. Any credit is directly connected to God’s gifting the whole thing. As with any gift I have learned how to mostly control the direction, push and turn buttons and drive it.

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    1. Yes, very strong reminder and very strong sense that Gods handiwork happens and we have no say in when where and how much. So much for thinking we are shareholders controlling the weather.

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    1. A good word “morphing” Stephanie. It didn’t last long, just enough for the show. Then winter went back to the future (even though it was teens for lows this morning).

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  18. Seems ironic to see the snow intermingling with the autumn colors, but the pair make a nice duo. Reminds me that in life we may have troubles or hardships, experiencing grief and gloom…yet right there in the midst peace and hope can usher our perspective to rest in the positive.

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    2. Ah yes Alicia. The duet of fall / winter seems to sing well to the soul. your reminder is so true and yes it’s all because of Christ. What a difference Christ (like a light in the darkest cavern) makes in the worst of the worst of life.

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  19. Terrific shots, Gary. I may have mentioned it before, so forgive me if I am repeating myself. On Oct 12-13, 2006, while living in Buffalo, NY, we had a freak autumn storm. Heavy snowfall, strong winds, etc. Of course, the leaves were still on the trees which caused so many trees to fall, or lose branches. By morning of the 13th, it looked like a bomb had gone off in January. Snow up to the knees, trees, branches, power lines all down. Power was out for most of the city, some for a couple of weeks. It was devastating. It was our October surprise.

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    1. Thanks Alan
      Those heavy snows like you had can cause so much damage Alan. We were fortunate as it snowed for 40 hours but mostly very light amounts at a time. Buffalo gets the lake effect snow so you guys really get hammered sometimes. It’s too cold for heavy snow here on most waist deep snows. They are light and fluffy mostly. I use a leaf blower for many snows (off the deck mostly) rather than a snow blower. usually our leaves are gone before it snows so this was great for pictures.

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    1. I feel the same way Jessica. water reflections add quite a dimension to scenery. I have always wondered if one could catch good scenery in raindrops coming down with high speed photography, like over a sunflower field or something? one can dream!

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    1. Thanks Wayne. Sometimes unusual things happen and it’s nice to be there and take some pictures even though the conditions were against getting good shots. My strategy was to take 200 + shots when the wind and snow took breaths and keep the better ones.

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    1. Thanks Beth. Today the leaves really started falling. It was 14 degrees this morning and I picked the last of our fall raspberries and ate handfuls. Being they have froze several times they were twice the flavor. Amazing. Can’t buy that in the store. I think that people who make it through really hard times in life and are found rock solid faithful, those people have a flavor of faith that can’t be made in church alone…

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    1. I think fellow bloggers like it when someone triggers a discussion where everyone seems to add a bit more to the conversation. I think my writing is sort of like the runner who can’t quite finish the race so a bunch of other runners help out. Then they end up with a “sitting around the campfire ” discussion.

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    1. It was actually too warm to freeze the lakes but a couple days later it was single digits in the morning…then yes. It’s still a month too early for safe ice to happen anyway.

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  27. Hey Gary. Taking another look here. These photos are really good. You’re in another world up there. At that time we still had 90 degree temps. We get two summers down here in Texas. You may get two winters. Fall has finally arrived, by my unofficial reckoning this past Tuesday, and I’m thankful. They say it was the worst summer on record. It reached 99 on April 5 and 104 on May 7. Those were not good portents. July was bad news. 28 days at 100 or above with a high of 107 during a week of 103 and above. The people who survived such summers every year before AC were some kind of stalwart. Like those who survived your often brutal winters. It’s like you said in one of your comments, figure out a way to survive and hopefully thrive within the nature where you are or not. God’s perfect Creation goes on. Thanks Gary. Keep up the good work. The Lord always makes a way. He is GOOD.

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    1. Thanks RJ. Yes, we will have some warmer weather here and there. We have frost at night and 50+ degrees later in the day. It’s hit 10 degrees and low 30’s for highs and then swung 40 degrees warmer. The early pioneers were quite creative and in good physical shape compared to most now-days. I wonder the difference betwen the early pioneers of the faith compared to most “christians” now.
      God’s end of things will always remain true and according to his nature. His creation, his artwork will always reflect his character. Creations beauty is way more then great “eye candy”. I take comfort in that. Yes, He is good.

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      1. I have begun prepping for next year… not an ice fishing guy – BUT… I will build igloos with the boys in the yard in the snow, because they love it 🙂 Have a great weekend!

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    1. I agree Sandra. That first pure white snow is something to take time and just enjoy. Our snow here never gets dirty unless there is dust in the air all the way from the fields of North Dakota over 100 miles away.

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    2. It’s rare as the winds have to be be big and they have to have bare fields worked up so the soil is loose. I think it used to be more common when farmers worked their fields in the fall, they have different practices and it saves on wind erosion a lot more.

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  31. The combination of Fall and Winter is so beautiful! We could be getting a sprinkling of snow here soon. The wind is icy cold! Thanks for sharing your beautiful photos, Gary. 😊

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    1. My pleasure Tina. Yes, when I saw the snow covered colored leaves, I grabbed the camera and went out in the windy snowing weather hoping to get some good pictures. Not ideal for crisp photos with some depth of field but it was just fun seeing a somewhat rare sight with autumn toting a winter coat.
      I believe the big front will get us both. On this Thursday/Friday we could get a foot.

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  37. Hi Gary, Beth Alisan (Lessons from a Lab) recommended you to her readers. It’s great to read and reflect on your inspiring words and pictures.
    That said, here in Victoria – Melbourne in particular (where it doesn’t snow) – we’re enduring yet another day of hot winds and temperatures in the high 30’s (Celsius that is).
    Blessings, Heather

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    1. Hi Heather, Beth has a great blog and I was honored to receive some attention for pictures. Thankyou for your comment. yes our winter scenery is very different than yours. I would trade your hot for our cold for about a day I think. After that I would remind myself that one can always put on more clothes but can only take so many off for temperature adjustments.

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