When the Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks arrive I know it’s Spring. We only have these lovely birds for a week or so, then they move on to wherever they live in New Jersey besides our back yard. Here are two males.
Each of them has a slightly different rose pattern on their breast. Take a look.
Beautiful, aren’t they? They just arrived on Wednesday as our company left. Now I have to keep a keen eye out for the hummingbird’s arrival which usually happens around Mother’s Day which is coming up on the 13th of May. I expected them early this year because of the earlier than normal Spring, but maybe they will come exactly on time.
But our weather has been a bit strange. One day we had over 90 degrees F, then we’ve had chilly weather for the past week with rain and temperatures barely reaching 60 degrees F some days. Last night at 1:15 (or should I say this morning?) we had our first thunderstorm of the year. It’s having a hard time making up its mind.
On Monday we took a walk in Skylands Botanical Garden. Here are a few blooming things that we saw.
The azaleas were magnificent!
Breathe deeply and you might catch a whiff of sweet lilacs! Sheer heaven!
Peony Power!
I don’t know what this is, but I like it.
The forest ferns had a good start; better than mine!
And these unique and lovely Jack-in-the-Pulpits were out on the forest edge all by themselves. It looks like they are having a conversation. They are truly interesting looking plants.
I do love Spring—even when it’s fickle!
I just got back from taking Alex for a walk even though it’s a bit blustery out there today. As we passed the little wooded area in front of our house it was hard to miss the large areas of bright orange on one of the cedar trees. What the heck?
At first I thought it might be mushrooms since it just appeared since our rain the other day. On closer inspection nearly all the cedar trees in that area were oozing orange goo. It looked like something from outer space! Yuck! You know me, had to grab the camera.
This tree had a different pattern of goo.
Up close and gelatinous! It’s very wet and sticky.
When I came in I googled “orange goo on cedar trees” and came up with something called quince rust. In a way I was right in thinking it was a mushroom since it is actually the fruiting body of a fungus. Here is a link to a pretty good article about it. It says it won’t permanently harm the tree, so that’s good.
Still … it’s very weird. What do you think? Would you like to have some orange goo of your own? I can scrape some off and send you some!
I am proud to reveal the new un-white guest bedroom ~ ~ ~ !
Rick helped put the room back together yesterday and I ironed the curtains before putting them up. The curtain rods needed a little attention since they were pulling away from the walls and the screws were somehow stripped, but other than that all went well. We are really happy with the whole feel of the room now. We think it’s very inviting and cozy! And a big change from what it used to be.
Not the best photos in the world since it was a dark day. (Not complaining about the darkness at all since we finally got some much needed rain—2.34 inches worth!)
The green space is all around us (outside). The rain over the past few days has really made the trees unfurl those leaves at a rapid pace. I love the color of new green. There is nothing quite like it. It’s nothing like the middle-of-the-road green of summer. I love this time of year!
Literally speaking that is.
The other day I was trying to get photos of the little fledgling ferns unfolding. It was necessary to lay on the ground in order to shoot them since they are not very tall. I’ve tried several times to get a good shot of them, but so far I’ve not been pleased. This particular photo shoot was about the same. Nothing much. I deleted them all except for one and even that one was not what I wanted.
In the middle of the night the bathroom was calling me. So, I got out of bed and walked to the bathroom, stepping over Alex who likes to sleep in the doorway between the bathroom and the bedroom.
On the way back to bed I reached up to scratch my head. Hmmm … there was a little bump like a pimple. I got back into bed and got to thinking about what that tiny bump might mean. I reached up again to explore that part of my scalp, parting my hair with the fingers on my left hand. Oh. NO!!! No doubt about it, I had a tick embedded in my scalp! Yuck! I really wanted to go back to sleep because normally when I get awakened at that hour I can’t get back to sleep if I make myself too awake.
But. There was a tick. Embedded in my head. How could I just go back to sleep knowing that? What I really wanted to do was scream at Rick “I’VE GOT A TICK IN MY HEAD. WAKE UP AND GET IT OUT!” but I couldn’t bring myself to wake him up.
Back up, stepping over Alex and in the bathroom once again I forced myself to grab the tick with my fingers as close to my scalp that I could get and pulled. He came out easily thank goodness, head and all. He died a not so quick death (those things just keep wiggling their legs) and I went back to bed.
But I couldn’t sleep. Every little tickle on my body became a tick crawling. I had to keep reaching out, checking, just to make sure. There weren’t any more of course, but I had the creepy-crawlies by then. You know how that is, don’t you?
I hate ticks.
Here is the reason for a tick in my head.
Totally not worth it. Why don’t they make Frontline for people?
Shad tree blossoms along my street.
Blogging is a strange thing. I started this blog for friends and family to keep up with all we were doing after our move from Colorado to New Jersey six years ago. Most of those people still read even if they don’t comment.
Somehow I started reading other people’s blogs and picked up some of their readers along the way by commenting on their blogs and being listed in their blog rolls.
Many people found me through knitting and when I used to be a frequent visitor to the Knitters Review Forums. Gosh, I haven’t been back there in ages! But I haven’t really been knitting either. Not sure what happened. Maybe it’s the lack of classes offered at local knitting shops? Anyway, I am getting off track.
So many of the people I used to follow have now stopped blogging and I miss them. The thing today seems to be Facebook and I just can’t make myself use it. So I still blog.
I’ve lost some people along the way and that’s been a little hurtful.
Like neighbor Luke who is now a senior in high school and has better things to do than keep up with my blog which he once read from start to finish.
Like Becky. She emailed me out of the blue a couple of weeks ago and I’m still not sure exactly why. She didn’t mention my blog being private or wanting to be a member. When I said something to her about it she just casually said she didn’t have time and didn’t know if she was going to register or not. Hmmm… Okay. It was odd, I must admit.
Like Jane. I miss Jane. Not sure why she never registered.
Like Reya. Ditto Jane above. Both readers from the beginning but not any longer.
Shad blossom close-up.
Then just the other day I got a request from someone to become a member of the blog that I never knew was reading. I sent them the info for logging in and they immediately became a member.
I also have a reader in Chile (who actually sent me a few photos of the city where she lives), one in Budapest, and a handful in the U.K. To think that these people somehow care about my little life in New Jersey!
I have readers I have never met, yet they know me probably better than most people do. That’s a strange thought, isn’t it? That’s one of the reasons I went private, because I do put so much of what is me out there. What you read is me and not some person sitting in front of a computer making stuff up. I don’t try to be anybody else or adopt their style of blogging. I have my own unique style, or at least I like to think so, of which photography plays a big part.
My sister said something the other day to me about how she was sorry she didn’t comment but she just isn’t in to flowers. Sorry sis, but I am! And it’s okay if you aren’t particularly interested in what I happen to be blogging about on any given day. It’s interesting to me, so I blog about it. Or photograph it.
I express myself through photography. My camera is therapy. I may not be the best photographer in the world, but I make do. I even have three photos published now! Unfortunately I didn’t get paid for any of them but I did get credited.
The first was a mushroom photo that was published in a book called “100 Cool Mushrooms” by Micael Kuo and Andy Methven (page 72 if you ever come across it), and the other two were just recently used in a case study that was done by Vision Research (Rick’s company) on Hawk (hummingbird) Moths. In both cases I didn’t pursue getting photos published, it just happened.
I kind of got off track, sorry. I was just typing and thinking and that’s how all that information you probably didn’t want or need to know spilled out onto the page.
So, with that I’ll close for now. Thanks for reading—each and every one of you.
