I is for Indian Paintbrush and Iceblink

I can't resist--I just have to bring you two "I" words today, one that's an old favorite and one that I just discovered.

Indian Paintbrush:

© Copyright 2011 [Roy Tennant], FreeLargePhotos.com

When we were kids, my sister and I spent a lot of time outside. We loved taking walks through the woods and fields surrounding our house, where we'd pick flowers and weeds and grasses to use as ingredients in our famous (to us!) mud puddle soup.

What's mud puddle soup? Well, whenever it rained, a huge mud puddle would form in the driveway, and my sister and I would pretend that the water was soup. We'd get our ingredients, then stir the "broth" with big sticks. I'm sure our parents wondered what we were doing whenever they looked out the window and saw us standing there, staring into a puddle, but hey, we were using our Imaginations--another great "I" word, by the way!

One of the ingredients we chose for our soup was the Indian Paintbrush. I don't know about my sister, but I always gravitated toward it because of its bright reddish color and the way it does indeed resemble an artist's paintbrush. Every time I see this plant my mind goes back to those wonderful spring days.

Iceblink:

I discovered this word last night when I was searching the Internet for "I" words I had overlooked. I found this one at The Phrontistery, a site that celebrates the English language with its definitions of obscure words. There I learned that an iceblink is a "glare in the sky caused by light reflected off ice." Further investigation at Dictionary.com found that an iceblink is "a yellowish luminosity near the horizon or on the underside of a cloud, caused by the reflection of light from sea ice."

Isn't this a great word? Right away I began I imagining how I could use it in a poem...

So what about you? Have you ever seen Indian Paintbrush? How about strange or obscure words: have you encountered any lately--especially those beginning with I?