Friday Foto Friends~Closed Doors, Open Windows

Happy Friday everyone!  It's been a long, very cloudy, rainy, rather "dark" week here in our neck of the woods, and so we haven't been out much anywhere to take pictures, besides what I've already shown you in previous posts.  So this morning it appeared that the rain was finally letting up, and the sun actually tried to break through the clouds for a while, so we decided to jump in the car and take a nice ride while the getting was good!

We ended up down in our old "stomping grounds" in the Salt Springs area, and I've got quite a few pictures now to share with you...

Earlier this week I was looking for some autumn leaves to share with you...well I found some today!

Aren't they lovely? They are still changing and the varied colors make a lovely "bouquet", don't you agree?

Not far away was a real bouquet of flowers...these sweet purple wild daisies or whatever they are called. I am sure they have a real name, but I am too lazy of a daisy to look it up right now. Maybe someone out there can find out for us!

This bush was growing next to the dock at Big Lake Kerr, one of our favorite vantage points for photos.

After all of the rain we've had this week the water was quite high on the lake:

You can see the skies are still quite gray, making these photos almost black and white!

Ah! But I could hear a hawk calling over there in those trees...

So I zoomed in, and sure enough, there's Mr. Red Shouldered Hawk, perched on a tree top. He looks kind of wet or wind blown, or maybe both...

Now, these next few photos are out of sequence from our actual ride.  We made a little detour on our way down to Salt Springs to turn onto route 310 to see if the little bridge repairs have finally been completed.   We had heard rumors to that effect, so wanted to see for ourselves. It's been a project that has been going on for about 11 months, which created the necessity for a detour from that road, which took people who lived on that road WAY out of the way to get around to where they needed to go. So I know they are happy to finally have the bridge completed:

It really isn't much of a bridge...just a pass over a part of the waters near the Rodman Dam area.

It is also a shortcut for us when we want to head south to go back "home" to visit in Lake County, where we often meet up with extended family.  Now I can tell them they can come this way if they want to come see us...which probably won't be until sometime around Christmas or New Years, as we have all decided to do our own thing for Thanksgiving instead of trying to get the whole big family together. We've all had a busy and difficult fall in one way or another (i.e.; my hubby's surgery and recuperation, etc.) and we decided to keep our Thanksgiving simple and limited to immediate family and maybe a local friend or two...

But anyway, it is nice to know this road is open again and we will hopefully make use of it again soon.

Now, for the next part of our little ride this morning...do you remember when I shared these photos with you a few months ago of our former home in Salt Springs?

I may have told you that we had driven by to see our old house because it was listed for sale again and we just wanted to do a walk around it again for old time's sake while it was empty.  These were some pictures we took then this past summer:

The front yard and porch...

This was one of the trees we had planted in the Memorial Garden area, which was very overgrown and not being cared for...

The arbor in the memorial garden this past summer: Again, the house was empty and no one was caring for the yard at all...

This was in the back yard/courtyard, where the Memorial Garden was:

Again, more pictures from the Memorial Garden, so you can see how overgrown it was this past summer:

There's actually a privacy fence under all of those vines and bushes and a Crepe Myrtle struggling to bloom and survive...

Looking from the front toward the back, where the fence was and the Memorial Garden:

Okay, I showed you all of those pictures above to prepare you for the way it looks TODAY, now that the new owners have moved in and have made some major changes:

The front yard...many trees have been removed...

The privacy fence has also been removed:

Actually, one of the neighbors sent me this picture a few weeks ago, just after the new owners had moved in. That is a worker in the back yard of the house, contemplating what to do next I guess, after they had totally removed all of the fencing, and every tree and shrub in the Memorial Garden area.  When I received this picture via text from my friend/former neighbor,  I had to ask her what this picture was as I did not recognize the location at all. When she told me it was our old back yard, I was in shock!

We took this picture today...I am still in shock. Not only is the Memorial Garden/courtyard gone, but so is the Secret Garden, which was behind the house over there where you see the really green grass right now. That is where the huge Magnolia tree used to be, where I sat on my bench and wrote the "Secret Garden Chronicles"....Where I planted numerous azaleas and camelias.     Every plant, every tree, every fence, vine, you name it, is gone!  I do see they have several pots of new plants/trees sitting there in a row, waiting to be planted.

This picture below is how the Secret Garden looked when we lived there...

I guess it's time for me to totally let go of the past there and not look back again.  There are new people living there, and they will begin their own memories and create their own gardens the way they want them.  

Isaiah 43:18-19

18 “Do not remember the former things,

Nor consider the things of old.

19 Behold, I will do a new thing,

Now it shall spring forth;

Shall you not know it?

I will even make a road in the wilderness

And rivers in the desert."

I am very thankful for the years we spent in that home. It was a season in our lives when our whole family could still come together and we made a lot of good memories there. And then the time came when things changed...our one son passed away from cancer, our oldest son got married and moved away to begin his own new life, my mother in law, who had been staying with us for a good amount of the time we lived there, went to live in a nursing home until she passed away, other things changed and we decided to move on to our home now, here on Still Waters Pond.  It was all in God's perfect timing and we are very thankful for the "new thing" that He has done and continues to do in our lives since we left that house.

Sometimes we just need to see that "closed door" completely closed so that we can fully embrace the new "open window" God has given us.  I think that is what has happened for me today, and I am thankful.  Jesus said in Matthew 28:20, "Lo, I am with you always, even until the end of the age..."

and so therefore I can face each new day with confidence.  "Emmanuel, God with us!"

And so, that is the journey we took today...it was a longer journey than perhaps even we realized.  But I am thankful to have reached our destination safely and happily.  Have a blessed weekend, my friends!