In Town

Awake, thou wintry earth -

Fling off thy sadness!

Fair vernal flowers, laugh forth

Your ancient gladness!

~Thomas Blackburn, "An Easter Hymn"

Chick Time!

I sent Darrell down to the feed store to pick out FOUR new chicks this year, just enough to assure I will get a few eggs daily throughout next winter.  Chickens over a year old tend to lay only sporadically during the cold winters up here.  I knew that if I went, I'd end up picking out 10-12 different varieties of chicks, like happens every year, and then I get a butt-load of eggs everyday during the first year they lay.  Too many! 

Which one looks more likely to eat the chick?!?!

My New Friend

I made a new friend with a gentle bumble bee today......

I asked him nicely if he'd come out and play!

Then I watched as he collected pollen, cute as can be.

Now it's time for a real poem about a

Bumble Bee

While Strolling Through the meadow

One fine and sunny day

I came upon a little Bumblebee

Along the way

He was dancing and jiving

He was as happy as could be

So I asked him what he was doing

He said "Can't you see?" "See what",

I said as he bounced

There on my knee

"I'm happy as a bumble bee",

That is what he said

As he tapped his little toes

And Bounced upon my nose

I'm going to be a father bee

Happy day's oh happy days

~Darryn John Murphy

Warming Up!

 On my way into town I noticed that the snow level was creeping up in elevation.  The nights are still quite nippy, but the days are reaching warmer temperatures.  The past few days we have seen numbers in the low 50's!

Ahhhh! Spring is on the Way!

,

First a howling blizzard woke us,

Then the rain came down to soak us,

And now, before the eye can focus,

Crocus!

~ Lilja Rogers

  "Pied Beauty"

GLORY be to God for dappled things—

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;

And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise him.

~Gerald Manley Hopkins

Experimenting blogging from my phone. :-)

Sun!

We saw the sun today in the Pacific Northwest!   I enjoyed watching birds from my sunroom.

Winter Flashback

Hopefully we had our last snow for the season this past Friday night.  Wishful thinking, I know.  Still.  I hope.   Meanwhile, I came upon this old photo of my mother and her brother ice skating some winter day long ago.  Perhaps the 1940's. Or maybe the '50's?  Who's to know.......      Wouldn't 'cha just love her sweater for a vintage sweater party?!?!