“There's a sunrise and a sunset every single day, and they're absolutely free. Don't miss so many of them.” ― Jo Walton

Sunset this evening [filtered through Waterlogue]  Happy TGIF, everyone!

SPRING ARRIVED FIVE DAYS AGO, BUT WINTER DID NOT GET THE MEMO!

We had snow flurries off and on all day here. But this afternoon, it really turned loose. I happened to glance out the window and was surprised to see nothing but a wall of white.

Squirrel got caught in the flash blizzard but decided the sunflower seeds were worth it.

Here in middle Tennessee, we can pretty much count on snow on the buttercups.

It was awesome while it lasted.

Our mini blizzard lasted for about two minutes, then left as quickly as it came. Sun came out ~ melted the snow. Nothing to see here. Move along, folks. Ah, springtime in Tennessee.

T. G. I. F. !

Beautiful day to be outside. Sunshine was hazy. Not too shabby for the second day of Spring.

Neil took a half day off so he could tackle this mess in the back yard. We recently had our very old and very large black walnut tree cut down. Neil wanted to keep the wood to cut up into firewood. Big chore.

He found this wire coming out of one of the larger pieces of the trunk. Our house was built in 1927, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this tree had been growing there since then. We’ve been told that the lady who lived here way back when kept animals in the yard. I think she had a donkey. And probably some chickens. She most certainly maintained a veggie garden. At some point, fencing was stretched around parts of the yard, right up against this walnut tree, which grew around the wire as the decades rolled by.

The wire goes straight through the trunk and out the other side. Neil is glad he discovered it before he cut into it with the chain saw. It’s a weird sight. I remember seeing a picture once of an abandoned bicycle that a tree had grown around and the bike became a part of the tree. Mother Nature rules!

The buttercup sticking out the top seems to be shouting, “Look at me! Look at me!” When they cut the big walnut tree, those huge limbs and trunks fell onto our buttercups and buried them. But some of them survived – until I picked all of them that I could get to around all that heavy wood. I see it as a rescue effort. I figure I may as well enjoy them where I can see them.

[Aerial view of my pretty yellow bouquet]

Grandson Elijah walks over here after school each day. He was very excited, telling me that he and his dad are going turkey hunting Saturday, and he turned around and found me snapping his picture. But he’s used to his granny doing that to him. This turkey hunt is for kids only, so he’ll be the only one with a gun. I hope he gets a big one.

Here’s Neil with granddaughter Shelby and grandson Elijah at the D.Q. this afternoon. We were celebrating the awesome grades they made on their report cards. Elijah got 4 [or maybe it’s 5] E’s and 2 G’s. Shelby made all A’s. She was thrilled to finally get that A in math, bringing it up about six points from a B. So HOORAY! for these two and their excellent efforts in school. We are so proud of them! [Neil and I did not make good grades, but we got treats anyway.] Happy TGIF, everyone! Hope your day involved treats of some kind.

HELLO, SPRING!

It’s about time, don’t you think?
“No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.” — Hal Borland

Never iron a four-leaf clover, because you don't want to press your luck. ~Author Unknown [HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY!]

This little leprechaun [a.k.a. grandson Knox] appeared at my house this evening, wearing green shamrocks and his Irish eyes smiling, as the song goes. Although his family surname is English, he does have a bit of Irish in him [through his great great grandmother--my dad’s mom--who was a Flynn]. But I guess we’re all Irish on St. Patrick’s Day.

May your blessings outnumber
The shamrocks that grow,
And may trouble avoid you
Wherever you go.
~Irish Blessing

EVER LOVIN’ SATURDAY !

Yep, it was just that kind of day—the kind where you wanted to jump for joy because the sun was out and the sky was blue and it felt kind of like summer—not hot but just right—and you knew you’d better soak it up because—well, just because. Neil and I dropped by grandson Knox’s house this afternoon and invited him and his mom to go to DQ with us for a frozen treat. But he was having so much fun jumping that he actually turned down ice cream—with sprinkles. Yep, it was just that kind of day. [Thanks for the picture, Kelly]

A house with daffodils in it is a house lit up, whether or not the sun be shining outside. ~ A.A. Milne

Sun and warmth today, but I’ll need my daffodils/buttercups/jonquils tomorrow to light my house for some spring warmth when those arctic winds blow through. Spring always struggles to arrive.

It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so! ~Mark Twain

My grand peeps, Shelby and Elijah, stayed with me today as they are into week two of spring break. We finally had a day that lived up to its name. The weather was so perfectly spring-like that we decided staying inside with our noses in our electronic devices was a true crime. We treated ourselves to scoops of ice cream then headed over to our local park to soak up some of this awesome day. Took along a half loaf of stale bread which the ducks and geese readily gobbled up no matter how many times they’d been fed today.

We hit the walking trail [and hopefully walked off some of that ice cream] and headed toward the playground. We are blessed to have this wonderful park to enjoy, especially on a day like today. The place was packed with like-minded folks who are sick to death of winter. Tomorrow’s weather is supposed to be equally as nice. We might get spoiled if this keeps up. Happy trails, y’all!

Time exists in order that everything doesn’t happen all at once…and space exists so that it doesn’t all happen to you. ~Susan Sontag

I’m very sleepy today, and I need a nap, because sometime during the night, the time thief broke into my house and snatched a whole hour right out of my life. Doesn’t do any good for me to protest, so I yawn a lot and go about my house, running the hour hand forward on all my clocks, and let me tell you, I have a lot of clocks, which is my bad, because I love clocks. I may or may not get my hour back sometime when the leaves are falling off the trees again. In my state, some law maker has proposed a bill that would do away with time falling back [into what I think of as ‘real time’]. We would be the only state in the union, besides Hawaii and parts of Arizona, that would not change time. Ever. And this could pose all sorts of interesting problems, so we’ll see what happens along the road into the future which seems to be coming at me faster and faster all the time, with or without moving my clocks. So DST it is. I’ll wake up and get used to it, eventually. Tick tock.

[photo filtered through Waterlogue app]

People in suburbia see trees differently than foresters do. They cherish every one. It is useless to speak of the probability that a certain tree will die when the tree is in someone’s back yard. You are talking about a personal asset, a friend, a monument, not about board feet of lumber. ~Roger Swain

One of the things that attracted our family to this neighborhood back in the early 80’s was the tree lined street. Our house was built in 1927. We bought it in 1983. At the time, there were seven trees lined up across our front yard, most of them maples. They were probably planted back in the twenties. Not sure about that. But we enjoyed living in their shade during the summer and watching their leaves turn red and yellow in the fall. Sometime through the decades, the practice of topping trees came into vogue—a terrible thing to do to a tree because it dramatically shortens the lifespan of trees and creates hazardous trees in high-traffic areas [that’s a quote from this great link if you desire to know more about tree topping:  http://www.plantamnesty.org/stoptopping/5reasons.aspx]. Our trees had all been topped at some point before we bought the house. And, one by one, we’ve been forced to take them down. This red maple was a home to squirrels, and many a baby bird hatched in the nests in this tree. And finally, the past two summers, we’ve seen swarms of termites literally spewing out of the trunk. So, before it could blow over and crush our house during the upcoming tornado season, we [finally] decided it was long overdue to come down.


This tree had been a disaster just waiting to happen. The whole tree was like this from top to bottom.

We are now down to two maples in our front yard, one on either end of the property, nice and symmetrical, at least. The tree cutters did such a great job. They also pruned the dead wood from the two remaining trees and they look nicer now. Hopefully safer. While we had them and their equipment here, we also had them remove the giant walnut tree in the back yard which was always a hazard, dropping its baseball sized walnut bombs all over our yard and our neighbor’s house, as the tree was right on the property line. It’s a wonder someone didn’t get beaned by one of those things. It was a massive tree, but we won’t miss it. The only thing I regret is that those big heavy logs landed on top of our buttercups which were just beginning to bud. It couldn't be helped. They also took down our mulberry tree in the back yard. An ice storm years ago damaged most of the branches, leaving it weak and ugly. Our kids and grandkids have all enjoyed picking and eating those fat juicy purple berries every June, and the grandkids loved swinging on the swing their grandpa made and hung from one of its sturdier branches. We really hated to lose that tree, but it was time. We will mourn our loss until we get used to the big open sky in our yard now, a little piece of neighborhood history into the wood chipper.

A twenty-three-year-long study in Ohio determined that people who saw growing older as something positive lived a whopping seven and a half years longer than those who didn’t. ― Victoria Moran

These are the two pieces of snail mail Neil and I received today. I detect a theme here. We also get offers for life insurance policies and, the one I like best [not], long term care insurance policies. I guess word got out that we aren’t thirty any more. I’ll admit it. We aren’t even fifty any more and haven’t been for quite a while. But that doesn’t mean we need to be reminded of it every day.  So I guess we’ll take the advice in the quote above and keep a good thought about growing old[er]. After all, I’m still seventeen on the inside or maybe thirty three, in spite of my arthritic knee and hearing impaired ears [quite possibly caused by all those loud concerts I went to when I was a younger, less wiser me, but that’s the fun of being young]. In the mean time, reminders like this usually go into the trash or through the shredder where they belong. But Neil and I don’t mind taking advantage of some of those ‘senior benefits’ offered around town. For instance, today is Senior Day at Fazoli’s restaurant where we can buy two spaghetti and meat sauce dinners and drinks for six bucks. Score!

Winter bites with its teeth or lashes with its tail. ~Montenegrin Proverb

Snow day. For real. Ice first. Then snow. Not much snow, but it was pretty to watch as it fell. The schools here are closed, not for the snow, ironically, but for the two week spring break.

Didn't leave the house at all today except to brave the 20 something degrees temperature to feed the birdies this morning. They seemed grateful for the feast. I'm grateful I don't have to be outside.

The reason birds can fly and we can't is simply because they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.” ― J.M. Barrie, The Little White Bird

Hawk soaring in that perfect blue sky over my house the last day of February