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.

It is spring – really, it is…

I got up this morning and felt the urge to put on a turtleneck and a sweater.  It just felt like the right thing to do.  At church today, a friend said that she thought about wearing a turtleneck, too, but jokingly said she was afraid people would make fun of her because it’s almost May.  Hey, I don’t care if I get laughed at.  It’s raw out.  They say on the local news that this is not really unusual for New England this time of year.  And I do believe that, but after the winter we had, it would be nice to feel the warm sun on the old face now and then.  Yet we haven’t cracked 70 here.  Even so, I’ve seen lots of signs of spring around.

Of course, I know it’s spring when I hear the spring peepers.  They have been chorusing for a while now.  And that means that the water on the ponds is ice-free and open.

And, of course, there’s the skunk cabbage showing up in its usual places.  That’s a sure sign.

I even found a little fern family coming up the other day.

And the squills.  We have Striped Squill…

…and Siberian Squill in our yard.  Aren’t they beautiful?!

Mr. Cheeky is wondering where that pile of snow went that gave him easy access to a free lunch.

A friend posted on Facebook today that he saw a black bear jump the guardrail on Route 49 and cross the highway.  That's not far from our house.  The bears are out of hibernation.  I think that this means that the birds’ days are numbered in the free lunch category, too.  Sorry, little friends.

Willy-nilly Friday Five: Fits and Starts

1.  When I took Olive the pug out this morning, I couldn’t believe it.  It was downright cold with a rather biting wind.  It made me think that I had under-dressed for the occasion and should have worn my winter coat or that maybe I accidentally time traveled backwards and it was really February.  But, no, there is no snow on the ground.  It’s definitely April.

2.  Well, I’ve lived here long enough to know that spring comes to New England in fits and starts.  I was out yesterday buying a new toaster but couldn’t decide which one to buy.  In order to put off making a decision, I decided to check Facebook instead.  On Facebook, there was post after post of people complaining that it was snowing.  I missed it yesterday because I was in Target trying to figure out what toaster to buy.  But I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see it snow here today.

Some things are blooming here....really!

3.  Speaking of toasters, Greg and I have been married for close to 35 years and have had terrible luck with toasters.  I think we’ve owned six or seven in those years and we don’t eat that much toast.  We’ve had expensive toasters and cheap toasters.  I don’t see much difference between the two.  The best one we’ve ever had was a middle-of-the-road toaster pricewise.  It was the Oster that I was replacing yesterday.  I bought it at Target about ten years ago and it toasted our toast until a few months ago when it didn’t want to keep the toast down to finish the toasting cycle and had to be coaxed with curses and kind words.  I got sick of babying it.  So, off I went yesterday hoping to find the exact same toaster – the best toaster we’ve ever had – but unfortunately, they’re selling a new model of that Oster there now.  I bought it anyway and am hoping it lasts ten years like the last one, but I’m not holding my breath on that.

I got sick of waiting on the forsythia, too.  I brought this into the house and forced it.

4.  You know, we could probably get by in life without a toaster, but they are handy to have around.  The toaster I bought yesterday is red.  I consider that a kind of bonus.  Yes, I’m happy about that even though my favorite color is blue.

5.  Earlier this morning, I was sitting here at my computer with a blank expression on my face trying to think of what to write about, when I heard a great racket coming from the front yard.  There were six crows in the pines crowing louder than a Counting Crows concert.  I finally had to get up to see what it was all about and looking down, I saw a fox crossing the yard.  I believe the crows must have been warning the whole neighborhood that the foxes were out and about.  They kept at it for about five more minutes and then dispersed one at a time.  I think that crows are about the coolest birds going.  As a matter of fact, they are my favorite bird.  They may not be colorful and flashy, but they are sleek, elegant and intelligent and infinitely fun to watch.  What is your favorite bird?

Linking up with the crowd at Around Roanoke's Willy-Nilly Friday Five!

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.

Oh, snap…

When I woke up in the middle of the night last night like I usually do, I glanced out the window and saw that we had gotten a bit of snow.  Yesterday friends from the mid-west USA had posted photos on Facebook with bitter complaints about the weather because they had snow.  Didn’t the Powers That Be know that it was April 15 already??

  Here in Central Massachusetts, it was a nasty day yesterday but it was warmish so it rained all day and the wind was blowing like a son of a gun.  I thought that that was going to be the worst of it.  I wasn’t expecting snow.  But there it was staring me in the face at 3:30 a.m.  I didn’t lose sleep over it.  These late snow storms are ephemeral and really more like April showers than snow.  They don’t even make the flowers that are trying like heck to come up complain much.  But, here is what it looked like when Olive and I went for our walk this morning:

Looking out the window a little later, I saw that most of the snow was gone.  I went out and took a few snaps of the lonely flowers that are growing in our yard.  They looked a little down-hearted, but I think they will survive.  I suppose that that is the good news.

The bad news is that I felt like I had to put on socks today.  Oh, snap!

The Life and Times of Olive the Pug: The Wait

This morning it looked like spring has finally arrived here to Massachusetts.  When I took Olive out for her morning constitutional, we decided to walk down to the pond to see if there was any ice left.  I am happy to report that all the ice is off the pond and this morning it was nice and flat.  We took a couple pictures that I will share.

This one reminds me of a picture of sound waves.

But we had to hurry home because Olive’s favorite people were coming to the house.  A few years ago when my knee was at its worst, I hired a couple of women to come and clean our downstairs.  They come every other week and mostly concentrate on doing the vacuuming and the floors.  It’s an indulgence that I haven’t given up even though my knee is much better now that it’s new.  One of the reasons I haven’t given it up is because Olive, the pug, loves these women.  I mean to say that she LOVES these women and she goes pretty crazy when she knows they are coming.  How she knows is a mystery to me, but she knows.  Here’s a video I took of her waiting for them to arrive:

If you watch the video, you can hear that I am still a bit under the weather because I sound a lot like Marge Simpson’s sister Selma and I don’t even smoke!  But every day, it gets a little better.

Spring(ish)...

No, I haven’t dropped off the edge of the earth.  After an extremely busy (for me, anyhow) week last week, I managed to pick up a nice head cold and have been rather out of it since Saturday night.  But I appear to be somewhat on the mend today, so I thought I would put out a short post.

We had a little bit of a set-back yesterday on our way to spring when we got a bit of snow overnight.  But it was gone fairly quickly and there are only a few stubborn piles lying around now.

Spring has finally sprung and it was a beautiful day here today.  The pond isn’t completely thawed yet, but it’s just a matter of time.

The rest of the week looks like a quiet one for me so I intend to use it to catch up with the blogging world and to get rid of my stuffed up nose.

Hope you all are doing well!

Missing spring and other random thoughts…

1)  I am feeling nostalgic for spring today, thus the explanation for the pics I posted.  On Wednesday this week it seemed perfectly spring-like with the temps in the mid-60s, but on Thursday, it abruptly turned into summer with 90 degree temps and humidity besides.  Having lived in New England for more than 30 years now, I should be used to this precipitous leap into summer, but it always seems to sideswipe me and I don’t like it.  I suppose you can tell that I’m not a summer person.

2)  I think that if you keep the lights off when it is really warm out, it seems cooler.  I do a lot of sitting around in the “dark” when the temps hit 90.

3)  I am in love with a gorilla and I am going to post a link here so you all can fall in love with her, too.  Her name is Gladys and she is a baby Western Lowland Gorilla who was abandoned by her actual mother and is being raised at the Cincinnati Zoo by humans who act as surrogates and wear gorilla vests.  Eventually, she will be put with a gorilla surrogate.  She is just about the most freakin’ adorable being on this earth.  She is now older than she was in this video but still just as precious.

4)  Speaking of zoos, my daughter Carrie and I got a chance when she was about 10 years old to do a behind the scenes zoo tour at the Worcester (Massachusetts) Science Center (now called the Ecotarium).  At that time, they had two polar bears and we got to go into their den.  What magnificent beings!!  We were separated from them by a metal grate so got to be pretty close.  While we were in the enclosure one of them growled and I just about jumped out of my skin.  What a voice!  That day is one of the fondest memories of my life.  It gave me a love and respect for polar bears that has never gone away.  Seeing creatures (human and otherwise) up close often has that effect on me.  I suppose I am fairly typical in that respect.

 

5)  Greg has been on a week-long motorcycle trip with a couple of friends.  They circumnavigated Lake Superior, I think.  I will have to clear up the details with him once he returns tomorrow.  I don’t want to go on a motorcycle, but I do want to circumnavigate Lake Superior.  So I am a bit envious.

LINKING WITH NANCY'S A RURAL JOURNAL

RANDOM 5 FRIDAY

Sharing the Bridge of Flowers…

What a great idea Antoinette Burnham had!  She saw an old trolley bridge that was no longer being used and had a vision.  She sparked the idea to turn the old bridge into the Bridge of Flowers.  The Shelburne Falls Women’s Club sponsored the project in 1928 and the rest, shall we say, is history.  In spite of the fact that flood waters spawned by Hurricane Irene engulfed the Bridge in 2011, it is blooming and beautiful.  Here are a few blooms that Carrie and I saw on our trip there last Friday.

And here’s a little aside.  Last week I posted some road pictures from our trip to Apalachicola, Florida.  Here’s one:

While in Buckland, Massachusetts, I saw this and it made me laugh:

But I actually know what they support in Buckland.  They support local farms.  What that truck supported, I don’t know.  Maybe they support local farms too.

  That would be a good thing.

Worth waiting for…

I think I can say it out loud.  Spring is finally here in central Massachusetts.  I knew it when I saw that my tulips had pushed their heads up through the ground.  You just can’t trust the daffodils to tell the truth about spring.  But I trust tulips.

Thank you, Nancy, I used texture nc_0416-1 when I processed this pic.

  Having your textures on hand is wonderful!

LINKING TO A RURAL JOURNAL'S 

TUESDAY MUSE.

Finding time for the Hunt…

This has been a busy week.  When I look back on it, I am not really sure why.  But I haven’t had much time to spend in Blogland.  However, I did manage to get out and take quite a few photos so I have submissions for this week’s Scavenger Hunt.  The prompts this week are:  Walking, Yummy in my Tummy, Favorite Toy, What I did this week and Anything.

On Friday this week I went with my daughter Carrie to Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts to check out the Bridge of Flowers.  The Bridge of Flowers is an old trolley bridge over the Deerfield River that connects the towns of Shelburne Falls and Buckland.  Since the late 1920s, the bridge has been planted with flowers making it a very pleasant way to cross from one town to the other.  Carrie and I had a wonderful time WALKING across the bridge even though the flowers aren’t out in full swing yet.  It was still very beautiful.

Once on the Buckland side of the river, we walked on until we found a place to have a little ice cream.  Here’s my new favorite flavor, Caramel Moose Tracks.  It is YUMMY TO MY TUMMY!

My FAVORITE TOY is my Nikon D90.  Duh!

One of the things I DID THIS WEEK, I have mentioned already.  I went out to Shelburne Falls with my daughter to the Bridge of Flowers.  Here’s a view of it from the car bridge that stands next to it.

On the Buckland side of the river while we were walking along, I noticed a door that had the number 42 on it.  If you are a Douglas Adams fan, you know that 42 is the answer to life, the universe and everything.  That’s my ANYTHING!

LINKING TO ASHLEY SISK'S

SCAVENGER HUNT SUNDAY!