Don’t you just love hearts?

The shape of a heart brings about thoughts of love and caring. Hearts are generally quite welcoming. At Valentine’s Day, heart shaped boxes overflow with chocolates and greeting card fronts are filled with multicolored hearts.

I love hearts. For me, they symbolize that things are going to be all right. Right now, the world is not all right. Things seem to be in a state of turmoil, with no possible end in sight. That is very unsettling and causes us to become fearful.

Yesterday Little Bit and I shut off the outside world and had a nature day. Our black lab accompanied us. I’m pretty sure Ozzy was excited to be invited along, because he barked the entire time.

This week, we got nearly five inches of rain in our area. So, we ventured down to the creek to see how high it was. It was definitely up.

We’ve spent a lot of time down at the creek over the past six years. Spring time visits are filled with sights of wildflowers blooming. Summer days at the swimming hole are quite a treat from the hot sun.

Yesterday, on our fall day, the current’s roar was so loud, I kept thinking a vehicle was coming. We breathed-in nature and we exhaled the crisp fall air. We tossed rocks in the water and shivered a bit when the afternoon sun went behind the hill. Our laughter and chit chat filled the holler.

It’s fun to go down there and photograph the changing seasons. I love how one place can have such varied scenes. The sky, the water, the winding road. Giant tree roots washed in from who knows where, stealing places on the banks that were once empty.

On the way back to our truck, something on the ground stopped me in my tracks. I’m pretty sure I had to look twice! Yes, it really was there. It was a wasp’s nest in the shape of a heart.

What? That’s such a contradiction. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never met a wasp that was loving or welcoming! My experience with wasps has taught me to steer clear of them when they are flying about. Once you are stung by one, you never forget it.

After snapping a few pictures of this crazy heart, we continued our nature journey with a ride through the country. We passed streams, hay bales, and even saw a doe next to a fence row.

As our nature day came to a close, moon and stars seemed to swallow the night sky. What a glorious ending to a wonderful day.

This morning as I looked through yesterday’s photographs, my eye was once again drawn to the nest shaped heart. For some reason, there seems to be a bit of comfort in seeing a heart shape in something that was once a scary sight. Nature seems to have a way of looking at things that we may never quite understand. And that, itself, is just so amazingly beautiful.