Spring unlocks the flowers to paint the laughing soil. ~Bishop Reginald Heber

繽紛

This was a rather rushed shoot on the way to Madaba, a small city here in Jordan. After capturing shots of the wildflowers growing by the side of the road, my family and I saw horses grazing in a vast garden. It was a private residence, but we drove in and the owner was very welcoming. He allowed me to take pictures of the horses and flowers in the garden, and invited us inside for tea and coffee with cardamom. The house was elegantly but warmly furnished, and the sewing machine in one of their back rooms caught my eye because the Chinese 'Butterfly' brand sewing machines were quite popular half a century ago. It was a lovely experience, and the gentleman's family was the friendliest Jordanian family we have yet to come across.

"Not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these." ~Luke 12:27

These photos were taken at Wadi Rum, a tourist site in the south of Jordan. The last photo was taken while at breakfast in our hotel in Aqaba, Jordan's only port city. The 11th photo--the one with the arch--was shot at an upward angle from the ground, and the 8th and 9th photos were the view from the top of the mountain after I climbed up. On the way up, I captured the incredible flower in the 7th photo; I've never seen anything like it. The man visible in the 8th photo was the driver of our jeep, which we rode in to visit various sites in the wadi.