Oklahoma!

"Oh what a beautiful morning!  Oh what a beautiful day!" My grandmother used to sing.  That applies double to today.  Sunny, breezy, and 75, and oh, the azaleas.  Some have popped, others are getting ready to pop, and the late bloomers are just budding out.  I am in azalea love.

I have *just* started gathering them up...

...and putting them in vases. 

Big vases, tiny bud vases, old mason jars...all are pressed into use in this season.  Every bookshelf, every table, every free surface is positively overflowing.

Meanwhile, I'm also enjoying the green I'm seeing everywhere outside.  I get great pleasure from seeing new shoots coming out of dry, dead piles.

The dogwoods, with their very short-lived flowers, are showing off.

They make a great display indoors too!

Of course, there's the ugly side.  I'm prepping for a big work convention in April and just haven't had time to do the necessary yard work.  The driveway is littered with fallen branches.  The stone walls are overgrown with ivy.  Leaves are choking the path edges.

Well, I'll get to it when I get to it.  That's what I tell myself when I'm out filling bird feeders or picking flowers and ignoring the work piling up inside.  But it's so beautiful outside, with the birds singing and busily building nests, squirrels chattering, chipmunks dashing, trees budding out all around...

Always finding some new small delight, like clematis buds that weren't there yesterday...

Or discovering that one of the many peony bushes I planted 2 years ago is finally going to bloom...

Well, it's just hard to stay indoors.  Working from home takes a certain amount of discipline, and for me that's sadly lacking in the springtime!  I don't let it bother me too much.  :)  

Have a great week! 

A Perpetual Astonishment

"Every spring is the only spring, a perpetual astonishment."  - Ellis Peters

It must be true, because I don't remember a more beautiful season.

The beds, of course, are a terrible mess...leaf-choked, overrun with Helleborus seedlings, drooping ferns that need cut back, the works.  I hope I've got time to get my hands in the dirt this weekend. 

I've loved seeing the little creatures return with the increasingly warm weather.  I saw my first daring jumping spider of the season...my very favorite!  What a beauty!!!

These brown marmorated stink bugs have overwintered in our walls (shudder!) and come out, a few at a time.  You'll notice that they have tiny red simple eyes (ocelli), like cicadas, located behind their large compound eyes.

Their bodies are shield-shaped.

Not to be confused with leaf-footed bugs.  Also shield-shaped...

...but with a distinctive leaf-life growth on the hind legs.

Carpenter ants, too, are busy building a nest by the base of a tree in our front yard.  

I knelt down to watch them industriously removing grains of sand from the entrance until they perceived my presence and stopped.

I let them get back to work after a few minutes, but I'll keep track of their progress.

Hope you're seeing some green wherever you live.  Have a great week!

I guess that's why they call it the blue(jay)s...

There's just nothing like spring in the south.  At night, the frog calls from the pond and the trees are almost deafening.  I keep all the windows open as long as I can so we can listen.  During the day, the songbirds are singing.  The sweet strains of the Carolina Wren compete somewhat unsuccessfully with the bombastic TA-WEET!  TA-WEET! of the Eastern Towhee.  Woodpeckers of all sorts chatter from the tree trunks, and a flock of Blue Jays just moved in shakes the earth with their discordant whistles and whines.  Blue  Jays are the playground bullies of the feeder space, I've heard, and they have a reputation for stealing the eggs and young of other birds.  To me they're the most beautiful birds, though, because their feathers remind me of stained glass.  I like their noisy talk, too.

The male Goldfinches are suddenly filling in bright yellow...

...although the females remain a soft, muted yellow.

Woodpeckers are gathering food from sunup to sundown, like this female Downy Woodpecker...

...and this female Red-Bellied Woodpecker.

This Carolina Wren gathers material for a nest.

Meanwhile, this Bluebird keeps an eye on all the activity...

In honor of the season, I do my best to bring the outside in.  Every table has a spring bouquet, picked from the yard.

I brought in this cherry branch.  It was barely blooming at first...

But after a few days...

The camellias are so beautiful right now.

A few years ago I ordered some hand-painted ceramic eggs.  I make little nests out of leaves for them in the spring and scatter them around the house.

The cats are loving the warmer weather, too.  When not sleeping...

...they're outside on our (lamentably filthy!) back deck, lounging in the sun or trying to figure out how to escape into the surrounding woods.

It's a good time to be in South Carolina. 

Have a great week!