Friday Favorite: The Beauty of the Earth

It's time to share another of my weekly favorites! 

You do this, too, don't you? At the end of the week, don't you look back and pull out your favorite moments to treasure and give thanks for? I hope so. I'd like to know I'm not the only weirdo out there!

Some of my favorite moments this week were so beautiful, I just had to share them with someone, so here's the latest version of my Friday Favorites. (Yeah, I know it's not Friday, but yesterday I was having trouble downloading images from my cell phone.)

Once a month or so, my husband offers to take me with him to work. He logs in hundreds, even thousands, of miles a week in his job of building and maintaining FM radio tower sites. Since I realize that riding by himself for such extended periods must become monotonous (and since I kinda like being with him!), I take him up on the opportunity when I can work it out. I am SO glad I did this week!

The destination was the Spencer, NY, radio station tower. If you're not acquainted with Spencer, NY, you're in good company. Most of the rest of the world has never heard of it either! It is a tiny crossroads indicated by the red pointer in the center of this map. 

There is really no tower there. The station is called "The Spencer, NY, Station" because that's the general target area of the tower antenna. (Antennas are "tuned" to focus their outgoing signal in very specific directions. Did you know that?)



The actual tower location is about 20 miles south, in the hills just north of Sayre, PA, but still on the NY side of the state border. This is about a 4-hour drive from our house, along both interstate and dirt roads curving through the rolling hills of rural New York's southern tier. 


For those of you who think "Big Apple" when someone mentions New York, please enjoy with me the breath-taking scenery we enjoyed from this tower site! THIS is what most of our state looks like, not the towering skyscrapers and city lights most people imagine.


The tower is located in a field of wildflowers on top of a hill.

    

Separating the tower site from the dairy farm in the valley below is a rusty barbed-wire fence (not pictured) and a steep hay field.  The view from the site includes the far-off hills of northern Pennsylvania.

Beautiful, isn't it? 

While John replaced the generator starter and performed site maintenance, I just wandered and enjoyed the scenery.

  

    

It brought to mind the lyrics of an old song:

For the beauty of the earth

For the glory of the skies

For the love which from our birth

Over and around us lies

Lord of all, to Thee we raise

This, our hymn of grateful praise!

This past week has been a week of researching some of the poorest places of Africa. And although they have their own kind of beauty which I appreciate, I can't imagine a more beautiful place to live than our country. It's so easy to forget what a treasure we have in the amazing scenery where we live. This week, my favorite moments were wrapped up in simple praise for the beauty of the earth. 

                          

Q4U:

(questions for you)

*What is the scenery like where you live? 

*Do you love it or wish you had a different view? 

*What one place have you visited that you'd most like to return,

merely because of the natural beauty?

I'd love to hear from you!