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Showing posts with label flowers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flowers. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

"Spring has sprung, the grass has riz..."

"...I wonder where the flowers is..."

It's not my favorite time of the year - you all know I'm a "Fall"- but Spring is a close second.  True to the craziness of the weather around the globe, the Valley isn't getting much rain.  While other areas in the East have been digging out of snow piles, we are drying up here like a raisin.

Though they promised rain on Easter Sunday, it was sunny and warm.  Mother Nature dumped a couple of inches of water on us the night before, amid huge claps of thunder and quite a lightening show - just enough rain to wet down the yard and allow for some great mud tracks on the carpet (that's what vacuum cleaners are for:)

Spring is a sign of renewal.  Spring is the color green. It's fresh...and what looked dead actually comes to life again...

Our first rose...


The frost has killed this banana tree every year, but it forges on...


I love to add some Spring touches around the house...


I'm not traditionally a big "Spring Cleaner", but I tried that cream of tarter paste thingie that I saw on Pinterest on my grimy toaster...like all Pinterest hints, some work, some not so much.  I'll give this hint an 8 out of 10.


And of course, with the warmer weather, Colette needed some new fashion...

I love Stone Mountain and Daughters fabrics in Berkeley, CA. I'm headed down there again next week with an old friend to pick up some more knits for summer.


And finally, a poem for you...for Spring.  I wanted to write it myself, but I am fresh out of wit this morning. This classic below, although considered rather "melancholy", actually gave me a little snicker...


Spring


By Edna St. Vincent Millay 1892–1950



To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers. 


Laurel. Bring ye the flowers, O yard...

Monday, March 4, 2013

Flowers and Friends...

Not too many places in the world can boast having as many camellia plants than Sacramento, California.  In fact, it is dubbed the Camellia City.  Each year the local flower guild hosts a show and competition to the local lovers and growers of all thing "camellia."

Sunday was a glorious Spring Day, so why not go see the annual show, and dream about growing gorgeous blooms such as those exhibited by Sacramento's flower aficionados?

The blooms were stunning, even though many of them probably looked prettier on Friday.



 I personally preferred looking at the unusual and artsy floral arrangements. I love flowers and I love having them in my home.  I have decided (especially after seeing this arrangement) that I need to be more purposeful about keeping a bouquet in my home regularly. 
 

After the show, we spent some time with our friends in their back yard in the sunshine, sharing a nice glass of cool Fume Blanc.  Our friends' mid century style home boasts half a dozen camellia bushes that are upwards of 40 years old.  The bushes tower over the yard and were covered in beautiful blooms.  Their flowers rivaled any that we saw at the flower show.

 
I love photographing flowers!





 
And the sweetest flower in the yard...my friend Micki.
 

 
Laurel. Flowers make your day, just like friends!

 
 Sharing today with


Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Something pretty....

I was just reading a post of blog that's new to me, Beauty in the Ordinary. Jacqueline's "quest" (my word) is to sort through all the mish mash of life and find the good things in life to celebrate. As I read her most recent post this morning, I was struck by the simplicity of the notion that no matter what happens, there is always something "good", there is always beauty in life to behold. Her blog is an artsy feast for the eyes...lovely photographs mingled around words from her life...



It made me want to post something "pretty" this morning, just for the sake of art....something beautiful, captured through my lens...

Like these little friends at an East Coast wedding...


or this stunning bloom from he Chrysanthemum show...


Or my pretty little Bella, whose life is as simple as they come...


Fall Family Dinner is over,
Thanksgiving is around the corner. 
Dreams of Christmas holidays are dancing in my head...
and with it, the Annual tree cutting day with the kids and grand kids...


Laurel. Life is good.





Friday, July 13, 2012

A flower speaks ...



"I can't do a thing with it!" she groaned.

(Chrysanthemum plagued with unruly petals)




King's Mums, formerly located in Central California, left our fine state to go to Washington...or was it Oregon? It doesn't matter, except that it was a photographer's dreamland.  Dave and I visited before they blew Dodge to snap a few flowers...

Laurel. Having a bad hair day myself.

Linking up today with Flower Art Friday and Floral Friday Foto and Fabulous Fridays



 

Monday, July 2, 2012

Silence


Monday on Observing Beauty: SILENCE



Photo by Laurel on Isola Bella

Don't you just want to sit by this lily pond and contemplate it's beauty...in SILENCE?

Linking with Observing Beauty today.

Photobucket

Laurel. Happy to be retired on this Monday!

Friday, June 22, 2012

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Once a year...one day

He throws some water on them occasionally, but, he maintains, they're not suppose to need it.  I am dubious.  I water everything...but then I am a farm girl. What is it about these prickly creations that would make us stop in the middle of the road, in the middle of nowhere,  jump out and retrieve a tiny specimen to bring home?

Some just sit there for what seem like years, taking up space.  Some look like they are dead, or at the very least severely stunted and dehydrated. He tells me they are made that way - to withstand nature's cruelest tortures of the sun.

But then on some unnamed day at some random time in the continuum, the explode.  Your morning walk to get the paper is interrupted by the suddenness of it's appearing. The prickly orb sends forth its progeny, the frog prince is revealed and all is right with the world...or at least, Dave's cactus garden...








Laurel. Patience is a virtue.

Linked to: Floral Friday Fotos
Flower Art Friday


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