New calendar

A Christmas gift, a 2015 calendar, fresh, crisp, blank just waiting to be filled with new adventures.  I hope you have your 2015 calendar, crisp and blank ready to fill with your own adventures.  Happy New Year!

Visiting birds

As it has been cold and the ground covered with snow, the birds have been visiting our sunflower seed filled feeder.  We have seen chickadees, nuthatches, finches, and pine siskins.  Interesting enough the ground feeding Juncos will also visit the feeder as do the downy woodpeckers.  We have had a new nuthatch visitor, a white breasted nuthatch.

Evening sky

This evening the sun painted the cloud yellow which then mellowed to a coral orange.  The lovely yellow light reflected off the white breast feather of a threesome of feeding chickadees.

The golden leaves of the riverside cottonwoods and box elders are now dropping.  The brush oaks on the mountainside are also falling.  A weather change is due at the end of the week.

Autumn colors

This year the orange and red Maples dropped their leaves early.  We are now seeing the oak brush changing to yellows as well as the Cottonwoods and  Box Elde tree along the river.

Thunder, lightening, rain!

Summer has sped by.  Tomorrow is Labor Day.  The squirrels are preparing for winter.  Collecting sunflower seeds, acorns and other food stock.  The fact that they  visit our yard,drive Mollie crazy.  She is territorial, this is her yard.  She watches from the window, giving an occasional low growl.  When you let her our she rushes after the squirrel, who take off up the closest tree.  Most often the reach an upper branch, turn a scold Mollie, as the squirrels are also territorial.

The Scent of Lilacs

Purple ... White flowers
Flavor the slightest Spring breeze.
The scent of lilacs.

The scent of lilac reminds me of my grandmother.   It is her scent.  The money she gave us as children was always ironed then scented with lilac.  Lilac bushes filled her backyard.

My sister buried the end of my neice's umbilical cord in Zuni tradition under a French lilac bush, as  a subsitute for a Zuni hearth.  My dear friend, Rebecca is Zuni,  so she shared this tradition with us.

Tonight, Mollie and I enjoyed the beauty of the purple and white flower clusters as well as the scent of lilacs.

In the Mirror

Earlier today, I watched an Internet ad for Dove soap.  It showed women looking in the mirror to fix their makeup,etc.  It then asked the question "when was the last time you smiled back?" The next frame showed a number of young girls.
This made me laugh and think.  I often smile at myself or make a face when I look in the mirror.  I invite you to do the same.  It is a great way to start your day, a smile or a laugh can stay with you all day.

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.

Primrose Lane with butterflies

 My Mother's Garden is filled with primroses and butterflies.  She has planted a primrose lane.  The butterflies - Swallowtails, Mourning Cloaks, and skippers as well as honey and bumble bees are abundant throughout the garden. 

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.

Blustery Day

We awoke this morning to a fine, crystalline snow falling and blowing.  A perfect day to snuggle in the blankets with my dog, Mollie at my side and write a note and a letter or two.

Summer Heat

This summer has been hot with little precipitation.  My neighbor' s on reservoir water have had to conserve.  We have had 18 days of over 100 degree temperature.  The monsoonal rains have mostly hit to the south of us.  Bushes have already changed color.

Neighbors

I have the cutest family which lives next door.  They have two young daughters - 2 & 4 years old.  Last week after the rain, they let the girls splash in the muddy puddles.  This morning they planted sunflowers.  They are creating memories.

My sister and I were 5 years apart, our mother allowed us to splash in puddles, and dance in the rain.  I am reminded of memories.

Like a tapestry

This morning my mother's garden reminds me of a tapestry.  It is green with the sweeping curves of feathered fern fronds woven with dotted knots of blue forget-me-nots, and the more showy yellow, orange, and pinks of Iceland poppies, fringed with pink English daisies.  An occasional spike of lupine blossoms adds color.  And while it lacks a unicorn, it does include a iridescent ruby throated humming bird flitting through, visiting the flowers.

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.

Spring Green

Recent rain has made the grass in our yard and on the hillside turn green.   The addition of warmth and periods of sunshine have made the canyon's choke cherry trees pop green leaves.  Spring green!

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.