Spring Has Sprung!

The creeping myrtle that I pulled long ago from the bank behind my childhood home and transplanted here at our house is one of the first plants to flower right after the crocus appear.  It really is quite invasive and can be a challenge to keep it from taking over the landscape, but I planted it in the back corner which is fairly rocky and unusable without major effort and landscaping.  It reminds me of my growing up years, my mother aggressively pulling it out in the spring to keep it where she wanted it.  Sometimes in the summer I would take a blanket and my lunch and have a little picnic in the grass at the base of the bank between us and the neighbors on the hill behind us.  That bank also provided us with a place to sled in the winter and just run down in the summer.  The neighbor sometimes yelled at us to get off that hill, not sure if the top of it was her property or ours but it didn't stop us from playing there.  My brother Dan broke his arm running down that hill and tripping over a tree root. Good times--haha!  Poor Dan was the one who broke bones--arm, wrist, thumb--all while just being a kid and running around, riding his bike, and playing.  I guess out of four kids one of us had to be accident prone!

You know it's spring time when the forsythia blooms!  These also remind me of my childhood because we had a huge "fence" of forsythia between us and the side neighbor.  They are also invasive!  My mother, it seems, loved her invasive plants--ha!  It did make a really good privacy fence though.  We only have a few growing across the back of our yard, but of course they are spreading so.....

We had a few really warm, summer like days this week and one evening after dinner I spent a little time on the back deck and watched the moon rise through the trees. This picture doesn't do it justice, but it's funny how the moon rises before the sun is set.  It was pretty bright because it was nearly full on this day.  Soon the leaves will be out and I won't get to see it through the trees until the fall.

I don't remember how long ago I planted these hyacinths, but this one came up in spite of being covered by leaves and a pile of twigs my husband put there last fall.  I moved the sticks off of it when I saw it coming up through the leaves.  Soon we'll have to get busy with rakes to uncover everything.

My older daughter and I went to a paint and sip fundraiser for the pet adoption she went through for her new cat.  I was smiling, but the person who took the picture must have snapped this before that--probably I was saying something in the second before.  It's a fun memory now!  I followed the colors on the example picture and the instructor's direction, Anna made hers colored like two of her cats. 

The background of this picture is from our little Lake George at Schooley's Mountain Park nearby.

 

April Already!

Recently I visited a nearby park and walked to the start of the falls, where the little lake emptys out over what I assume is a dam.  It was lovely standing there watching the water and listening to it rushing away down over the rocks.

This is a view of the lake there. It is called Lake George, but is much smaller than the more famous Lake George, NY.

Another view of the lake, this one from just before the bridge over the falls.  You can see in the background the metal boardwalk across the lake and on the right a clubhouse with a lovely patio on the lake.  I plan to picnic there one day soon when my sister in law can join me (she's a teacher and has to wait for Spring break).

I can’t believe how quickly the months are flying by!  Here it is April already, and I could swear just last week it was Thanksgiving!  I know I keep writing about time passing fast, but boy it is true for me.  I guess I just get lost in the days and when I look up I’m turning another page on the calendar.  At least time isn’t hanging heavy on my hands.  This is a good thing. The first day of April is famous for being April Fool’s  Day, a day where people for some mysterious reason play pranks, tricks and jokes on each other; some harmless, some mean depending on who’s involved and what type of person they are.  I’ve seen everything from a single gal announcing she’s engaged on social media (when she’s not even got a boyfriend), to someone leaving the kitchen tap on the sprayer so that when someone turns it on to say, fill the teakettle, they get drenched, to giving someone cookies made with salt instead of sugar.  It’s supposed to be all in good fun.

               I’m not one to prank people, but I do remember one time when I was much younger and very silly that I played one on coworkers.  At the time, I worked in a donut shop baking the donuts.  On the opposite side of the kitchen was the finishing table where the donuts were filled, frosted, or coated before going into the display case for sale.  Under the table were 3 rolling bins, about the size of a bassinette, filled with powdered sugar, granulated sugar, and glaze.  They each held about 25 lbs. of ingredients, and my trick was to bury just under the surface of the sugar sheets of parchment paper so that when my coworkers tried to coat the donuts they would not be able to get enough sugar to do so.  As I remember, we all got a good laugh out of it.  That’s it, my whole April Fool’s Day story.  I never promised a hilarious story here, but I hope it gave you a chuckle.

               I do hope that April will feature some calmer weather than we’ve been having, but even with the extreme cold we had recently there are flowers emerging from their winter sleep and buds appearing on the trees in the warmth of the sun.  It is a good and hopeful sign of things to come.