So much beauty, yet so much sadness in our country

It's an absolutely beautiful Saturday here in Central PA!  Clear blue skies, almost 70 degrees.  The sun was shining right on me as I sat on the porch drinking my coffee earlier this morning.  How I wished my sisters were with me.  Long ago Doris, Mary Ellen, and I picked this weekend for our annual time together here at my house.  But we postponed it in due to the virus.  While our county here is really opening up, Lancaster County where they live is still on tight restrictions for another week.  They have had so many more cases and deaths than we've had here.  I truly hope we can find another time to do it. We all feel really sad about it.

This was a beautiful week weather wise.  Lots of sun, lots of warm weather, even a thunderstorm that ended with a rainbow.  Here are some sky pics I took.

After the storm!

Last weekend Dick and I worked outside.  I weeded, he dug out a lot of lilies and grasses, replanted some hosta where they were getting crowded out by lilies.  Whew!  These perennials are crazy the way they reproduce.  He put stuff out along the road for free, which was mostly taken, and now he's out there again digging up more lilies for another friend who wants some.  We need to get some mulch to beautify everything more.  

On Sunday evening we went over to Anthony and Lori's to spend some time with them outside.  The flowers were just beginning to have some color!  We had a fun time with them.  Austin didn't catch any frogs that evening, but in the collage below I added a picture of one he caught last week.  This week they picked up a brown toad.  Definitely not as beautiful as a frog!

On Monday we went down to Sam's and had a cookout with him and the kids.  I brought steaks and baked potatoes, he had hamburgers.  We used his new charcoal grill.  I won't bother with steaks again.  The hamburgers were a much bigger hit!

After we ate they wanted to take us to their special spot along the river.  Wow!!  It was just a ten-minute walk from his apartment.  What a great place and such amazing views!  At the place where they were wading in the water it is so shallow they actually watched a guy drive his truck right across to the little island!  

Here are some pictures I took on my walk one day this week, including the last lilac.  They did not bloom very well this year.  

I also enjoyed seeing flags along my way.

Here are some pics I took when I got back home.  

On Thursday evening Dick went over to Anthony and Lori's to check his trail cams.  I told him to take pictures of the rhododendrons.  WOW!!!  They really popped since Sunday!  I'm definitely going over there today to take more.  I know there are some red ones too. 

This is a truly sad week.  I generally do not talk about current events on public platforms, but on Thursday night I saw this on Instagram, actually posted by my friend Cheryl's daughter-in-law Ainsley.  And I felt convicted.  

For the first half of this week I thought I could not watch the video of George Floyd's death.  At some point I decided I needed to.  While I can just try to tune it out and act like everything is okay, his family cannot.  If such a horrendous death came to my son or my grandson, I would want people to care enough to learn about it and speak out against it.  I care deeply about the unequal treatment of Black Americans.  I always have, but even more so since Anthony married Lori, and we now have two precious grandsons who are half black.  George Floyd was someone's beloved son and brother.  I cannot imagine the pain of listening to him beg for breath,  even calling for his mama before he died.  Anthony has been studying the treatment of black people for at least twenty years.  He reads a lot.  Before he even met Lori became part of Unity Church of Jesus Christ here in State College, right out of college.  He knows and has listened to people and their stories all these years.  It may seem that racism had been better and now is worse.  I think it has always been bad, but now there are more ways for us to know about it, and black people have more courage to speak out.  The injustice they experience all the time, just because of the color of their skin, which they cannot hide, has brought them to a boiling point.  

I also read something yesterday that made me even sadder.  An educator asked her audience if any of the white people present would please stand if they would be happy to receive the same treatment that the black citizens in our society do.  No one stood.  She rephrased the question, and still no one stood.  She said, "Then you already know what is happening and you don't want it for you.  I want to know why you're so willing to accept it or to allow it to happen for others."

I remember a few years ago when Anthony was having a discussion with Austin about racism and Austin said if he ever faced it he would feel safer with Anthony than with Lori.  THAT says is all.  And it absolutely BREAKS MY HEART!!!