Blue Ribbon Flower?

Every year, our little town has a fair. It’s a huge deal and it runs from July 1 – 4 ending with a fireworks show at 10:00 p.m. on the last day. As with any fair, people bring in their quilts, their photos, their cookies, bars and breads, and whatever else creative people make to enter in the competition hoping that this year they’ll win a blue ribbon for their creation. People also bring in their flowers. You know, the ones that they have growing in their gardens. This cracks me up. I mean seriously, these people are going to get a blue, red, or white ribbon for the quality of their flowers. First of all, does God get any credit here at all? And who, in their right mind, would want to be “judging” God’s handiwork? I’m told that in order to have beautiful, blue ribbon flowers you have to take care of them perfectly, thus the reason they are up for being judged. I suppose it’s true, that if you watched for insects and maybe put the correct fertilizer on, you’d potentially get a prettier flower, but still, I’d rather judge a person’s creativity in their landscape design than the “perfection” of their flowers.

All that to say, that if the Cannon Valley Fair was running this week, I think I might just get a blue ribbon for a most gorgeous iris that blossomed today in my front yard. Mind you, I’m not exactly sure who planted it. I think the bulb was in a pot that I was given as a gift, along with some other bulbs. John insisted we plant them on the off chance they’d come up again, so I left tht chore up to him. If I remind him that he planted it, he’ll remind me for the 109th time in our nearly 33 years of marriage that he was once “Horticulture Champion of Lake of the Woods County.” I always find this claim of his to be most amusing as he doesn’t know the difference between a pansy and a petunia. I think the true “champion” may have been his father, but that’s another story.

So, here are a couple of pictures of what I consider to be a perfect iris. I suppose I should give John a wee bit of the credit, as he did take the time to plant it, but if I’m honest I’d have to give credit to the One whom I believe deserves it the most, so let me just say, “good job, God!”