Things are stirring...

I got up in the middle of the night as I often do.  It was the night before the full moon and it was bright out.  Looking out the window and down into the yard, I saw a fox walking across the stone wall in front of our house.  He hesitated right below my window like he knew he was being watched and then sauntered off toward the woods.

The next morning when I went to the garage, I noticed that suet feeder was down on the porch.  It had obviously been pulled off the hook where it hung through the winter.  I think we had a visit from a bear.

Things are stirring around here, folks.  Yep, things are stirring.

Our crabapple tree has set its buds.

The squills are starting to go and the bluets have sprung up.

We even have a tulip blooming.

The magnolia buds are getting ready to burst open.

Of course, the may flies are out, too.  But I'm doing my best to ignore them.

Linking up with Our World Tuesday.

Magnolia Season…

Looking out the window this morning, I realized that it won’t be long before all of our magnolia blossoms will be lying on the ground becoming one with the lawn.  Every spring I look forward to those lush flowers, but they are so fleeting.  I always try to go out with my camera and see if I can save them…at least on my hard drive.  Here are the ones I am keeping around for the rest of this year.

Ode to the Magnolia…

Every flower is a soul blossoming in nature.

~Gerard De Nerval

Scavenger Hunt on a beautiful day…

Here are this week’s prompts:  Happiness, Spring in Black and White, Family or Faith, Fuzzy and Gathering or Provide.

 

HAPPINESS for me is living comfortably in a beautiful place surrounded by nature and great neighbors.  We are so incredibly fortunate.

SPRING IN BLACK AND WHITE.

My FAITH lies in the beauty and resiliency of nature.  Our magnolia that was heavily damaged in a freak snowstorm a couple years ago is once again beginning to bloom.  I stand in awe of nature.

Once again, here is our magnolia showing off its beautiful FUZZY buds.

This is my current WIP (work in progress).  I am making an African Flower throw.  This entails crocheting a bunch of African Flowers and GATHERING them together to make one piece of fabric.  I learned a few things from this project.  First, I never have enough scraps to make a project, which is what this started out to be…a scrap busting project.  So now I have even more scraps to use up.  Second, it is really important to read all the directions before beginning a project.  I know that but don’t always do it.  And thirdly, if I ever make another African Flower throw, I will use the join-as-you-go method, which I would have known if I had read all the directions.  Whip-stitching these motifs together is a true pain.

LINKING TO ASHLEY SISK'S

SCAVENGER HUNT SUNDAY!

Spring cleaning redux…

All these flowers have gone away for another year but they live undisturbed on my hard drive.

Ode to our magnolia…

When we moved into this house more than ten years ago, it was in the middle of December.  Consequently, we really didn’t have any idea as to what was planted in our yard.  Over the next year, it was fun to see what popped open in the spring and hung around in the summer.  The person who lived here before must have been a pretty good gardener…something I am not.  There are bulbs that come up every year, daylilies galore and there are gorgeous white azaleas and rhododendrons that, when they bloom, look like clouds that have fallen in front of our house. 

And in our back yard on the edge of the woods there is a magnolia tree.  I fell in love with this tree the first year I saw it in bloom.  So I was horrified this past October after the freak snowfall when we realized that the tree had snapped in two under the weight of the heavy snow.  But apparently, the loss of a limb, even a major one, is not enough to have this tree give up the ghost and it bloomed again this year.  The blooms are not as profuse as in the past years.  But the magnolia did set its buds and brought forth some flowers that are beautiful even if they are a little brown around the edges because of our dry spring.

 

I suppose that the tree never had a moment’s thought that it wouldn’t bloom as I had feared would happen because of such major damage.  Such is the tenacity of wild life and my personal tendency toward despair sometimes.  It has been an uplifting sight looking out at the blooms that are now beginning to fade and drop to the ground because that is what they are supposed to do while the waxy green leaves are beginning to emerge.

 

Nature’s perseverance and persistence always puts hope in my heart and I stand here in awe of it.