Snow and other sights, travel, and spring flowers
It's been a while since I posted anything here, so this one will cover a
bit of time (well, almost three months). But I'll try to keep it short
enough that I can get it done, and you won't be too bored with it.
Snow plus
The new year started off with a fairly sizable snow storm. On New Year's Day
morning we had
this view off the deck.
By late afternoon, things had closed in a bit and started to snow, looking
like this. The next
morning we had
real snow.
In back of the house,
too. But, by mid-morning it had
cleared up some, and
the sun was shining.
I had, of course, delayed taking down the Christmas decorations. This picture
should have been included with Christmas pictures last year, but I only took
it on January 4 bofore taking it down. Anyway, here is our
"Franke" angel. The
"Franke" is Erica Franke (no relation) a former resident of Monterey, and the
angel is in
the manner of some she painted for the city of Monterey. This one was painted
by an artist from Seaside, CA.
A few days later, I caught the
full moon setting
behind some clouds.
Why are there so many, pictures of rainbows, (as the song goes)? I guess
we just like rainbows. At least I do, so here are some pictures I took this
winter of some. On
January 14, then on
February 7, and
finally, on
February 27.
I caught a picture of a grey squirrel at the bird feeder. I thought I had
it pretty well protected from them, but this one simply jumped straight up
from the ground to the platform,
about 5 feet high.
February travel
We went to Benicia for Valentine's Day. Before we could do that, I had to
finish Ian's Christmas present so we could take it down in the van. I didn't
get a real good picture of it, but here's one I did take of his
play table
while I was staining it.
We went to the playground with the grandkids, naturally, and they are pretty
big on the
bars and
related equipment.
One day we went out for lunch, but had to wait. So we
entertained ourselves.
From Benicia we flew to Palm Springs, and our friends Sandy and Larry
from 29 Palms picked us up. We had a great time with them, and picked a few
lemons for them. OK, we picked a LOT of lemons for them, for which our
reward was this small
bunch of lemons.
I kid you not, some of them are bigger than some grapefruit I have seen, and
they are all extremely juicy. What lemondade!
Spring flowers
Back home, the earliest of the
spring crocuses was
out on February 23. In the last couple of days, I took a number of pictures
around the yard. We've had warm weather for about 10 days or more, and
things are pretty much exploding in growth (just in time for our usual
early April snow; we shall see). The
daffodils are at
nearly full strength. These
white daffodils look
quite spectacular among the yellows and greens. The
forsythia, flowering plum,
and that white stuff are looking mighty pretty. The
heather has been
blooming for quite a while. The
mock orange and some other
white stuff (4/15: nope, it's all flowering currant - even the white stuff)
is coming on strong. Also have some other
purple stuff with
heather in the foreground blooming away. Here's another shot of the
flowering plum and
white stuff, with daffodils. The
Oregon grape seems
to be doing exceptionally well this year (and deer don't eat them! Well,
so far).
One more little spring item. With all the John Deere (tm by Deere & Co.,
I'm sure), Amelia was feeling left out. I missed getting picture of her
with her
green and yellow
garden seat, so that's me on it. To see it a bit more clearly, try this
one, showing the
John Deere colors.