I woke to the sound of a dog barking outside. It wasn't a coyote. I stirred from my sleepy state enough to recognize my surroundings. Ah, I was home. It feels strange to be here. Normally it feels good to get "home," but this time I'm ready to go back. I'm not sure what was different this year than past years. 

Yesterday I wandered our house aimlessly, unsure of any routine or what I was doing. It was all off. I didn't sit with my morning cup of coffee watching the sun light up the side of Bull Mountain. I didn't start a fire in the wood stove to take the chill off. No stellar jays squawking and asking for their morning feeding. No walk to the bottom with the girls. 

No. Instead we had the television tuned to Good Morning America. I was appalled at the amount of depressing, unnecessary news they spew out. Rapes, murders, accidents and lots of other horrible things that don't have any bearing on my daily life. Sure, some news you need to hear, but we really don't need the level of detail they report. I've decided it's not part of my morning anymore. I lived just fine without it for three weeks and I felt all the better for it. 

The trees have really changed here, and a few are even done so we have a lot of leaves on the ground already. When we left it was still summer, but we came home to fall. It's chilly and gray and we had to turn the heat on for the first time. It's hard to believe we were swimming right before we left.

I'm sure all the old rhythms of life will soon find their way back into our routines and life will go on as before.

The other day this little sunflower bloomed in the front yard where I toss bird seed for the birds. Somehow this little sunflower seed managed to escape being eaten and beat the odds by germinating and finally blooming without anyone's help. Pretty amazing.

The other day I escaped the house for a little "me" time and headed to Skylands. It's been a long time since I was last there. The annual beds were planted with a riot of colorful zinnias and there were butterflies, bees, and hummingbird moths everywhere I looked. They were loving these flowers! Some of them were gracious enough to pose while others just flitted around.

 Sometimes one bloom was just too luscious for only one species at a time. There was some sharing going on.

I love how the little Snowberry Clearwing Hummingbird Moths roll up their proboscis when they fly.

It's easy to see how they got their name. Here its wings look pink!

Not a zinnia!

Photographer's Note: I did not bump up the color on these photos. This is just simply how they downloaded from the camera.

I really don't have much for you today, so you're going to get a little of this and a little of that. As you can see by the photo above, my view on the world has turned to green. The trees seemed to burst into full leaf nearly overnight with our rain last week. Sometimes they fill in gradually and it seems to take forever, but this year they seemed to need to make up for their later than usual start. My tomato plants that you can see have not been potted and put outside just yet because our temperatures this week are dipping into the mid 30's and flirting with frost. It's  kind of hard to imagine the pool opening that is scheduled for Monday.

I forgot to mention the hummingbirds. They arrived right on time about two weeks ago and somehow remembered exactly where the feeder was. The rose-breasted grosbeaks made an appearance at the front feeding station yesterday but I have yet to see them on the back yard feeder. They only stay a few days and then they are off to other locales. We had so many little white-throated sparrows a few weeks back singing their sweet little peabody, peabody, peabody song, but they too seem to have been just passing through. The cardinals are singing their heads off and I love having them around. I am still waiting for the wood thrush and now that the trees are fully out I shouldn't have to wait for long.

white-throated sparrow

The fox has been back. I always know when it's in the front yard because Bella goes nuts. She hates the fox. If this is one of the same foxes that visited  before and distributed mange amongst the dogs, then bark away Bella! If it is the same fox, it looks like it's a lot healthier than before. The only part that still looks bad is its tail.

Figgy is leafing out and has been living outside now for about a week. We did bring it into the garage last night because of the predicted (but didn't happen) frost. She seems to have survived the winter in the garage just fine. The leaves might not be quite large enough yet to cover Adam's parts but they are looking good.

RIght now the crabapples are about done and the dogwoods are blooming. Wisteria is also blooming right now and I need to take some photos of it just growing wild, hanging in the trees. I don't have any in my yard but down by Green Turtle I noticed some right by the road the other day. Azaleas are also pretty showy right now.

I mentioned last week that I was knitting on a project. It's a market bag for my sister. I made myself one and loved the pattern and the end result so much that I wanted to knit another one and asked her if she might like one. Here is what mine looks like, and you'll be glad to know I didn't have to take the other one completely out. It's coming along but I haven't worked on it very much in the past few days.

Now that the roof is finished there is a small project in the laundry room that is being tackled. We needed a new slop sink and faucet and are ripping out the old fake tile wallboard and having actual tile put in behind and around the sink. Then we'll need to paint the whole room, but I' m not so sure when that will get done. You see, our schedule for the next month or so is going to be a bit crazy.

On Friday we are leaving for the shore since we have had an invitation from friends Andy and Linda to visit them at their shore house for the weekend—dogs and all! The last time they invited us was the weekend that Sandy hit so we are hoping for good weather this time. They've only just finished the repairs on the house since the damage that was done by that superstorm and we'll be their first guests. I hope the dogs behave. We're anxious to see how water dog Bella likes the ocean.

Monday is pool opening day and Rick has business and an overnight stay in Philadelphia, returning home on Tuesday. Wednesday we have the pool deck and sides of the house being power washed. Thursday brings Rick's Mom (also named Lynn but without the "e") for her visit of ten days. After Lynn leaves on June 3rd we have a week and a half before we take off to Cartagena. So you can see what I mean! After that things calm down again until September and we can kick back a bit and enjoy the summer in full swing.

How's that for bits of this and that?

 I took my camera for a walk around our yard after the rain the other day.

Here is what I found of interest.

 Rain Drops

Violets

When I mowed the yard unfortunately I had to mow some violets. I have never seen so many violets in our yard!

Dwarf Iris

A Busy BumbleBee

Blooming "Orange Goo" Fungus

Remember last year? This time I caught it as it was drying up, but still creepy.

MORELS !

Rick found these mushroom gems growing in their same old spot.