So it begins . . .

A package in today's mail - the lovely agates and jaspers I bought. You know, the ones that spoke to me of the prairie landscape. Maybe you can't see it yet but I can and I know how to coax the scenery out of each and every one of them.

The dotty Rainforest Jasper holds lilypads on cool green ponds and golden circles of crops, watered by rolling circular irrigation arms, viewed from miles above the earth. A strip of a gravel road between two neighboring towns.

In the yellow jasper pieces, a slender thread of a twister. Not a sight you want to see close to home but there it is. A weather fact of life. Sometimes when the weather turns particularly threatening and there are warnings of the possibility of a tornado, the air becomes electric and golden. At the perfect time, the thread appears, touches the earth and stirs up only clouds of dust if nothing is in the way.

Brilliant and verdant green - a cross-section of the fertile ground. An ant farm view of the prairie with roots growing deep below the tiny trees, the clear pale sky background. The moss agate will become the views of the green prairie trees in the distance with miles and miles of bromegrass undulating like a green ocean.

Oh I see plenty and it won't be long before these rough slabs becom visions of my surroundings. Beautiful. Just wait and see.