My neighbor's red tulip, March 2009
Do you ever feel like you really should be doing X (whatever your X may be), but instead you take out a few minutes to put together a post for Ruby Tuesday? I really should be getting ready for Passover, but I know I won’t have time next week (I’m taking my daughter to the circus on Monday, and on Tuesday I must get ready for the last days of Passover). Maybe I’ll have circus pics in two weeks? We’ll see.
Pictured is the first red tulip in my neighbor’s garden. Two years ago he planted similar tulips, and last year I painted this watercolor in response to his lovely tulips:
Forsythia, March 2009
Last month I was hard-pressed to find any flowers to post for Today’s Flowers. This past week I photographed so many on my block alone! Daffodils, anemones, some little pink ground cover, a little red tulip, vinca, and magnolia blooms. I saw a bleeding heart opening up a few blocks away. Can anyone identify the blue flowers on Friday’s post?
Pictured is a forsythia bloom taken last week in my backyard. Ilana-Davita showed forsythia in her Nature Notes post last week, and she writes a bit about forsythia, a flower known as a harbinger of spring.
Pottery by Leora Wenger (done in the 1990's)
One day I will get back to doing pottery again, which I did for about ten years and stopped around the time my middle son was two. I took the opportunity to photograph some of my pottery today against a black blanket, as this week’s Thursday Challenge is DELICATE (Glass, Lace, Jewelry, Plants, Breakable Things,…).
I am going to challenge myself and hopefully you to take a look at nature. What is going on in your area? Is it spring in your part of the world or are you heading into cold weather. Take a little walk….. look at something you might never had paid attention to..a flower…a plant..an animal…What changes are taking place?..Is your garden starting to come to life again?..Step outside and close your eyes. What do you hear? …take a deep breath…What do you smell?
I’d really like to know how my blogger friends feel about what they observe in nature. Post a photo..a poem..artwork or a even few words about what you see and how it made you feel…
For my second nature note I decided to concentrate on buds:
Top row: red maple tree in Donaldson Park, parsley in my garden (not really a bud but “budding”), my daffodils on the first day of spring after a surprise snowfall
Bottom row: magnolia bud from N. 8th Avenue (avenue has a strip of trees down the middle), my neighbor’s tree (maple?), forsythia bud in my backyard
Please click each thumbnail to experience the photo fully. Thank you.
Enjoy the lovely striped crocuses with orange stamen that grow in front of my home.
I also have white crocuses that popped up recently next to my sidewalk.
The first periwinkle has shown its purplish blue petals on the side of my house.
This is a fun bunch of purple crocuses that emerged under my climbing rose bush.
My neighbor just showed me where the deer have already nibbled at his (and my) tulips.
The pink markings show where the deer nibbled (upper left) and the deer hoof (bottom right). I am thinking of buying blood meal. Other deer-friendly scare tactics welcome.
My daughter got out early from school on Tuesday (parent-teacher conferences) so we spent an hour in Donaldson Park, a large county park on the edge of the Raritan River. I took a lot of photos, and I wanted to share a few.
Tree identification time! Does anyone know what kind of tree this is? It is growing right by the little pond in the park, and it doesn’t look very tall. The red buds attracted my eye.
Update: according to my local tree expert, the tree is probably a red maple. She said Middlesex County planted quite a few of those near the little “pond.”
