Recently, I stayed at a friend’s house for a week to care for her Jack Russell terriers. The dogs are sweet. The older one (Phoebe) slept the days away in her favorite chair most of the week, but even then was on full-alert.

This is literally the only image I have of her with every dog body part completely still (the younger one never shut down).

When not entertaining the dogs, I entertained myself in their wonderfully eclectic old house. There’s enough here to fill six months of weekly posts and stories, but I will stick with my favorite object: a beautifully made kaleidoscope on display on a small table.

Well, look! I’ve got visual proof of that right here! I’m a full-service blog.

I probably shouldn’t have touched the kaleidoscope, but I did. I probably shouldn’t have picked it up and examined it, but I did.

Examining was not enough.

I probably shouldn’t have looked through it out the window, as a series of severe thunderstorms pounded the area, breaking off large limbs and uprooting a few trees in the immediate area, but I did.

Through the kaleidoscope, I watched the effect of the light. as it transitioned from harsh, unfiltered sun, to a diffused soft light, then to near-dark conditions in the middle of the day, when the storms were at their worst. Still, I looked.

I was amazed at how the changing quality of light affected the kaleidoscopic patterns.

I could try to describe what I saw through the kaleidoscope, but I won’t. I choose to just shut up (for the most part) and present a sampling of the images as seen through this piece of magic.

The following images were created using a smart phone camera with no adapters or special equipment. Except for auto-resizing for posting purposes, no images were manipulated. They are raw, just as they came out of the camera – I mean phone. The dark images are dark because of minimal available light when the storm was most intense.

Thank You Father God in Heaven above that I didn’t break this precious thing (and I don’t mean my replaceable mass-produced camera phone)…

Amen.