Watercolor Leaf Buds

The leaf buds are getting ready to burst open.  Inspiration for a small watercolor painting. 

Another Spring first

I saw my first Spring butterfly today.  A lovely velvet brown Mourning Cloak flying from a pile of leaf debris.  The temperatures for the last three days have been around sixty degrees.  A taste of Spring.  The garden is filled with snowdrops.  I should be seeing honey bees, soon

Dawn Song

Spring most surely is on the way.  This morning I awoke to the trills and chirps of a bird singing.  The first dawn, morning song for me of 2017.

Seven Week

On Facebook, I saw a lovely picture of lilacs with the note that Spring begins on March 20th just seven weeks from today.  If you saw the snow accumulation in my yard this might be unbelievable.  Looking forward to Spring, but hoping for a slow melt so that the spring runoff is slow and able to be captured in the local dams and reservoirs.

Canyon view

 A perfectly green Spring day!

Ah!

Ah, a warm Spring day.  Blue skies with puffy cumulus clouds.  Temperatures in the low eighties.  An afternoon off.  Fresh green grass between my toes!

Notes

I spent a portion of the day, writing notes.  I found a packet of card that say "Good-bye Winter! Hello Spring! ". Inside "Welcome, every lovely thing that makes this time of year so beautiful.  Enjoy!"   They were perfect for sending Spring wishes to friends.  I hope that you will also enjoy a similar Spring wish.  Enjoy!

View

Outside my window,  I have been watching the buds on the maple tree green and grow.  I anticipate they will soon burst into leaves and flowers.  The maple tree's blossoms are not as showy as those of the fruit trees, but still a sign of spring.

Spring 2016

This weekend I was so excited to see apricot trees in bloom and to see my first butterflies of the season.  Violets, snow drops, daffodils, crocus and dandelions are in bloom.  I planted pansies for my doorstep.  A first peek at Spring 2016.

It's March

A taste of Spring, a few sunny warm days.  But it is March, so today brought rain, snow and just a peak of sunshine.

Carpet of violets.

The lawns of Spring are often filled with a carpet of purple violet that scent the spring breeze with their perfume.

Early Spring

The apricots and other flowering  trees are in bloom,  a month earlier than last year.   We had such a warm winter this year,  with only a couple of snow storms.

Mourning Song

Oh, the trills and chirps of the avian mourning song have returned.  I heard the first notes on Saturday mourning, a sure sign that Spring has returned.

Spring Green

The steel gray sky heralds an approaching storm and intensifies the spring green new leaves.

Eastering

On Saturday, we celebrated Easter with the family tradition of Eastering.  My grandfather originally created this as a way for family members to all come together, to enjoy the arrival of Spring by getting outside for a hike and a potluck with hot dogs and marsh mellows cooked over a camp fire.  The Easter bunny was also invited.  He/She filled the children's basket will all types of treats and then the sneaky bunny hid them (mine was often up a tree).  As children we were allowed to invite friends to go Eastering with us, and as we have grown older,  the  cousin's families have gotten so big that each now holds their own Eastering outing at which friends with their families are invited.

Saturday was a perfect day, with good food, a warm hike and for the boys- baskets filled with toys and treats.

I hope that your Easter was lovely filled with family traditions.

Violets

"Violets, sir?" from a play my sister performed in college.  I picked a volet from the garden to share with my mother, as I have often done since I was a child.  As a child my father would bring home violet bouquets.  What a lovely scent to have a violet bouquet in a vase on you bedside table.  It is amazing how a small purple violet can remind you of so many memories.   May the scent of sun warmed violets perfume your spring breeze and bring with it memories.

The Apicot Tree

For me, the apricot tree is the first herald of spring; and not just due to the childhood verse " popcorn popping on the apricot tree (although I do sing it each spring.  The blossoms of the apricot tree appear with the warming days of spring, and the renewal of memories.

On the mountain road to Brigham city, orchards are filled with trimmed and squared trees.  This process allows for the fruit to develop to its best potential.  My favorite trees are older trees most often found in gardens or on property lines.  They have grown with gnarled and twisted trunks sculpted by wind and weather.  Their untrimmed branches brush the sky.

Recently,  our Utah weather included rain, hail, slush, and large lazy snowflakes, and yes this was all in one day.  As the weather cleared, and the sun came out;  I walked in a friend's garden.  Her apricot tree old and gnarled was at the back of the yard near the property line.  It's branches covered in bloom framed our mountain, Ben Lomond.  Standing under its branches, I was surrounded by a storm of falling petals.

The blossoms of the apricot tree heralds the renewal of spring and memories.

More Spring Color

The Mountains that surround the lower valleys are covered with a soft almost velvet, spring green with highlights of bright yellow- green Maple trees.  In the canyon the Maples leaves have appeared and flowered.  We are still waiting for the Oaks.  My mother's garden is filled with blooms - tulips, daffodils, and all colors, red, pink, purple, blue, yellow, white primroses.  The neighbor's plum tree has scented the air as well as dropping petals of confetti throughout the neighborhood.

On the freshly mowed, green lawn Mollie lies, enjoying the warmth of the sun and chewing on a stick.

An Impatient Wait for Blossoms

This morning Mollie and I set out to collect a handful of branches from the fruit trees that grow in the canyon.  The canyon is filled with plum, apple, cherry and an occasional, and rare peach or apricot trees.

In the 30's a dam and water pipeline was built by the WPA project to insure irrigation water for the Northern Wasatch Front farmers, although now it mainly irrigates the lawns.  It is my theory that the fruit trees in the canyon came from the fruit packed and eaten from the WPA worker's lunches.  The seeds from this fruit volunteered, and the trees now grow in concentration along the pipeline.

Over the years my mother or I have trimmed branches from these trees to bring in the house, allowing them to warm and bloom, providing us with an earlier enjoyment of the blossoms of spring.  We currently have a vase filled with apple tree branches which we are impatiently waiting to bloom.

The snow is melting

The snow in our yard is melting, the snow drops are in bloom, the temperatures are reaching the mid 60s, and tomorrow rain is forecasted.  Did you notice that I said rain instead of snow?

Spring is on its way to Ogden Canyon.  Oh, how lovely!  Mollie and I enjoying sharing a patch of sun that falls through our window onto our spring green bedspread.