Gratitude Spiral: Day 173

Today, I’m grateful for blooming lilacs.

They remind me of my daughter who wanted to get married when the lilacs were in bloom. And she did — six years ago yesterday.

What are you grateful for today?

Gratitude Spiral: Day 127

Today, I’m grateful for the promise that new buds hold.

These buds on our lilac bush are waiting for just the right combination of sun and rain, time and light, to open. The buds are a promise of the beauty to come if we would just have patience. And I’m looking forward to it. 🙂

What are you grateful for today?

Gratitude Spiral: Day 125

Today, I’m grateful for rhododendron buds.

It seems too early, but I can already see the purple just waiting to burst through and cover the rhododendron bush with blossoms. 🙂

What are you grateful for today?

Gratitude Spiral: Day 124

Today, I’m grateful for phlox.

It creeps across the gardens, filling in more and more space, like a slow motion ocean wave that breaks and washes across the flat sand. It’s early in the season, but I discovered a few of its tiny flowers the other day. 🙂

What are you grateful for today?

Gratitude Spiral: Day 123

Today, I’m grateful for new leaves beginning to unfurl.

These are on a bush outside my front door. One more sign that spring is here. 🙂

What are you grateful for today?

Gratitude Spiral: Day 118

Today, I’m grateful for a spring snowstorm.

Its big, fat flakes accumulate on grass and cars and trees, but in the end it’s no match for the rising temperatures of spring. It’s also a nice change of scenery in the midst of social-distancing and keeping close to home.

What are you grateful for today?

Photo Project: Now That’s Green!

Another month of taking (almost) daily photos of the scene beyond my kitchen window has passed. To view the beginning of this project, click here or choose the “Kitchen Window” tab above.

The first of May looked exactly like the end of April. But by May 5th…can you see all the little green buds?!

And two days later, the green was multiplying. Compare May 7th and May 10th, below…

And THEN… I went on vacation for a week! You can read all about it in Biking, Birding, and Brews: A Vermont Vacation. Can you guess what I found when I returned home? A whole, heck of a lot of green…

And by the end of the month, it was so thick that the rising sun couldn’t peek through any more, causing a lot more shadows than I was expecting. Sadly, the maple tree on the left also started showing signs of the same worm-attack that practically defoliated my young apple trees while I was on vacation.

I don’t expect much of a change in the scene for a few months. Green is green. 🙂 But I’ll keep taking photos and post more of them sometime during the summer. In the meantime, enjoy the view!

Photo Project: Spring Greening…

As the temperatures in April crept above freezing, the view from my kitchen window began to take on the greenish hue of spring. Of course, first I got to watch the last remnants of snow shrivel into nothingness…

Then, the grass began its greening. The trees, on the other hand, almost looked like autumn, with their rusty reds and yellowy-greens…

On April 19th, I had just finished taking my daily series of photos and was about to close the window when I heard loud rustling in the woods. Four white-tailed deer entered stage-right (in other words, from the street on your left). I grabbed my camera (still attached vertically to my tri-pod!) to zoom in on them, but they eluded any good shot. If you blow up the April 19 scene, you’ll see a couple of them approaching…

A well-camouflaged deer

By the end of April, the grass had regained its brilliance…

and the trees were budding!

Check out my previous posts in this photo project by clicking on the “Kitchen Window” tab above.

Poems on Earth Day…

I spent this day outdoors in honor of Mother Earth. Actually, I spent it clearing up the front gardens of all the debris from last fall. Playing in the dirt always sparks my creativity…

#1.

Excuse me,
did you lose
a crocus bulb or two?

They’ve settled in the grass
just here. I never saw
them coming.

cvb 2015

#2.

Grass
I didn’t plant
is sprouting
in the garden.
Chives I did plant
years ago hide small
mahogany heads
in their jungle.
I didn’t see until I knelt
and rested a gloved hand
in a swarm of sugar
ants. They didn’t
wait for me to say
it’s spring, it’s
time.

cvb 2015

Photo Project: The Disappearing Act…

As winter turns to spring, the view from my kitchen window shows promise. The solid blanket of snow has turned to patches and the landscape has transformed from white to brownish-green. The following photos document the official end of winter…

I was away from home for that first weekend of spring. Then, the early spring rains and occasional above-freezing temperatures during the remainder of March jump-started a disappearing act. Note the receding snow line in the photos below…

What’s most exciting, but not visible in these shots, are the swelling buds on bushes and trees. But it’s happening! Really!