I hope everyone has a great Easter holiday weekend! Our weather here in New Jersey is finally being kind to us and today we can look forward to a spring-like day before another cold front defends on us at the beginning of the week.

Today we plan to finally take down the Christmas lights from our little Alberta spruce trees out in front of  the house. The bottoms of the trees with the power cords for the lights have been under some kind of snow since they were put up. It's time!

We'll also jump in the convertible and go for a ride, hopefully with the top down!

Happy Easter!

Linked in to Weekly Top Shot

If you "stumble in" what condition are you in when you leave?

I have driven by this establishment so many times and thought to myself

I should take a photo of that sign.

Finally, I did.

Seen in Bloomingdale, New Jersey

Pulling from my archives today! Photo taken in September 2009 on our 70 acres of paradise out west in Colorado near the Wyoming/Colorado border. We try to get back once a year on vacation.

On that morning the clouds were so spectacular that I used the wide angle lens on the sky to capture it all. 

Linked in to Rurality Blog Hop!

The first day of spring has come and gone with nothing to show for it. Our ground is still covered in white from our 4-5 inch snowfall on Monday. It's melting, but slower than you would expect it to at this time of year. The thermometer is stuck in the 30's. When I look back on the blog entries from years past at this time it's almost surreal. Last year the forsythia was blooming! This year its buds are closed tight with not even a glimmer of yellow showing. I know, I checked it yesterday. I also know I promised no more white photos, but I couldn't help myself the other day with the late afternoon sun on the melting snow.

It's hard to motivate myself to go out with the camera to find anything of interest so I headed to the local garden shop yesterday since I had noticed that they were flying a big OPEN sign the other day. No flowers yet except for a few potted bulbs inside. And these colorful hummingbird feeders.

And this cheeky little guy who is much cuter than the pesky squirrels in my yard that have now chewed an even bigger hole in my best bird feeder. Other than that there was nothing to see or buy at the shop.

The weekend is supposed to be a bit warmer with temperatures in the 40's, but they are saying the wind chills are going to make it feel much colder. And, a little  more snow is expected on Monday. Alex keeps pulling out his snowman toy that was a Christmas present to play with and I think he might be jinxing us. I'm seriously thinking of putting it away until next year.

In other news, the last amaryllis is just about ready to bloom and it looks like it's going to burst forth with three flowers at the same time.

And on closer inspection, the huge amaryllis that still has one last flower blooming has another flower stalk poking out of the base of the bulb. Wow, I'm thrilled it has the oomph to send up yet another bud stalk!

So how's that for a mish-mash of stuff in one blog post!