Spring Has Sprung 2!

 

Lately we've been having foggy, misty mornings which turn into warm, sunny days.  I don't know if it's our proximity to the lake or our elevation, or just extra humidity but it makes for some hazardous driving and difficulty waking up. This weekend we're expecting July high temperatures and high humidity and just yesterday we were all feeling a bit chilly. It makes it hard to know how to dress one day to the next!  Oh well, at least it's never boring.  The flowers seem pretty happy with it so far, and I do love to see them blooming away.

When I see the mist it reminds me of being at my sister-in-law's house in the Adirondaks.  She ha a brook running through her land and in the early mornings in the summer you can follow how the brook runs through the forest by the mist which rises from it above the trees.  Nature is an amazing thing  There is something quieting about the fresh smell of moist pine trees in the early morning and sitting outside sipping a cup of hot tea that I feel nowhere else. I look forward to our yearly trip there, and she is a gracious hostess.  In the meantime I find things at home to quiet my mind and enjoy in nature.

The Azaleas are beautiful this year. I bought them perhaps 25 years ago at a supermarket in 4" pots.

I love these little petunia like flowers and get some every year in hanging baskets. The bees seem to really enjoy them, sometimes we get hummingbirds at them as well.

More Azaleas and a wind chime I hung this year on a broken but still useful hook on the inside corner of the deck.

A basket of mixed color petunia like flowers. It's so hard to choose just one color! So I like to get them all mixed together in one basket. 

I think the lighting in this picture of an Azalea is quite dramatic considering I took it with my phone. Soon the petals will fall off the flowers and it will just be green. Still nice, but not as showy as it is now.

Mother's Day and Outside Pictures

 

Mother's Day was nice, spent quietly with my husband and both my girls and my eldest's boyfriend. the guys did some yard work and my oldest helped me with a couple things inside, then we watched a ballgame on TV and ordered burgers for dinner. I love spending time with my girls!

I only got one bloom on the lilac this year,  perhaps the colder weather had something to do with it.  It's still pretty, but not fragrant. That seems odd, but I guess nature does what it does!

 For Mother's Day I get flowers and also a lawn ornament or wind chime. I love putting them around the edge of the patio. The first one and bottom one are wind spinners, the top one like a pinwheel and the bottom one, which is the newest, spins each level separately in the wind. I love how the top looks like an angel.  The middle one was a solar light, but it hasn't lighted up in years. I like it anyway, it reminds me of a black and white photograph.

 

MAYDAY!MAYDAY!

 MAYDAY! MAYDAY!  This is not the best picture of me, but it is my current condition. On a recent Sunday late afternoon, after a very nice day spent outside hanging windchimes and planting seeds I tripped over a box I put down and then forgot about. On the way to the floor I caught my arm on the computer chair and wrenched my shoulder out of joint. We called my daughter to drive me to the emergency room and my husband stayed with Hillary. Eight hours, several doses of strong pain killers, one nerve bock, and four attempts later my shoulder was back together and we were on the way home. I still don't know if surgery is needed, but no bones appear to be broken. I expect lots of physical therapy to be in my future at the very least. It's always something!  

The background picture was taken about a week before the leaves started budding in earnest.

This picture was taken from the middle of the board walk at Lake George at Schooley's Mountain County Park, looking toward the falls.

This one is from the same spot facing the opposite direction where a couple streams feed the lake. I went with my sister in law about a week before I injured myself. We had a great time hiking and talking and ended with going for a lunch of omelets at a diner in a nearby town. It was sunny, but cold and windy that day so the coffee we had at the diner with our eggs hit the spot!

Primroses I planted many years ago that have thrived in spite of weeds covering them most of the time in the past. I love their sunny yellow color.

Some violets growing wild along the driveway. This is the first year we've had them.