First rose of the season

My sweet hubsand brought this in to me today. The first bloom from our climbing rose bush.





There are several more buds getting ready to burst forth. In the next few days, the vines will be covered. But, there's nothing like the first bloom.

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A little bit of a surprise

Hubby and I went to the Botanical Gardens today. It was overcast all morning, which was perfect. While we were walking out of one of the rose gardens, Ernie stops suddenly, in mid-step and said, "Look at this!" I look down and this is what he had almost stepped on.

The cutest baby turtle! Ernie said it's some kind of water turtle (webbed claws). We wonder how this tiny turtle ended up in the rose garden...there isn't a pond or any water in that area. It's amazing to think it crawled from wherever without getting stepped on or picked up by a bird. That's another theory...it may have been picked up by a bird and then dropped.

We relocated the little turtle to a wooded section of the Gardens, near a stream. I hope it's safe and sound.

A little bit of an awesome moment

The circus came to town Monday. I (and hubby and Wendy) got up early and headed down to the local ball field parking lot where the circus was setting up. We watched them unload a few animals, including the Belgian horses.
At one point during the morning, as we were watching the big top go up, we could see they had let the horses run loose in a field behind the ball fields.
We were stationed at one of the entrances, away from where the rest of the crowd was watching. (It was a better vantage point for pictures.) While I was shooting away, Ernie says, "Here come the horses." I turn around and see 4 Belgian horses galloping straight for us! First, I pulled Wendy up from where she was sitting in the grass, (didn't want her to get trampled!) then watched as the horses stopped for a bite of grass.

(I wonder what the people driving by were thinking!)

The horses stopped for just a minute though, I think they must have gotten spooked by either the cars on the bridge, or maybe it was me standing there with a strange object that made clicking noises pointed at them! :) Whatever is was, they turned and galloped off.

If we had stayed with the crowd, we would have missed this experience. I'm so thankful I was there to see these amazing, beautiful animals up close and in MOTION.

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A way to save energy...

The first sun tea of the season...

A little bit of fun in the park

It was an absolutely gorgeous evening. After supper the girls and I went to the park. The back field is covered in pretty purple clover...a perfect spot for some pictures. I wanted to try something different so I held my camera in one hand and had Wendy hold my free hand. Then we started spinning while I snapped shot after shot. Oh, my...so FUN! She laughed and squealed. We spun until we were dizzy. Heather wanted to try also, so I spun again. I was surprised that I got anything useable, some of the shots are blurry, but not terribly so, just enough to show movement. I'm calling them artistically blurred! ;) These two are my favorite. I love the backlighting on Heather.

(they look a little washed out...the background has a bit more contrast and color)

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A little bit of gardening...a way to save money & the Earth

We started our garden today. We planted radicchio lettuce, a lettuce mix, spinach and sugar snap peas. The zucchini & cucumber plants were put into bigger pots...it's too early yet to put them in the ground. The herb seedlings have just started to sprout in their little greenhouse as have the tomatoes and peppers. We still have carrots and bibb lettuce to put out.

Remember the Barbara Mandrell song, "I was Country when Country wasn't Cool"? That's how I feel about our gardening. We always had a garden, but it seems like in the past couple of years, more and more people are planting home gardens. With the whole "go green" movement and people looking for ways to save on their grocery bill, gardening is now chic.

I played around with the processing on these photos a bit. I was going for a 1930's-40's type of look. I'm not sure if that's what I acheived, but I like it anyway. :) Why that particular look? Because the resurgence in the popularity of gardening made me think of the Victory Gardens of WW II era. My mind works in weird ways sometimes...it's a scary place! lol!

I have a whole series of shots I plan on making a storyboard with.

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Discovery

So happy to go outside and shoot in the sunshine! While I was in the yard today, I saw a plant in the wildflower/butterfly garden that I've never seen before. Can anyone help me identify it?

I think I call it EggPlant! ;) Just a little April Fool's joke!

I have a new favorite Easter decoration. I found the basket at Goodwill and fell in love with it. It was just a bit too distressed and rusted, so I dabbed on white acrylic paint in a few spots. The eggs came from the Home & Garden show held in downtown St. Louis in early March. At the end of the show all the garden vendors sell their plants and flowers from their displays. We were buying some tulips from one of the vendors and he threw in the eggs for no charge. There were too many purple eggs, so I painted and speckled three of them. (the two yellow eggs and one of the blue eggs). I love acrylic paint...instant makeover! I filled the basket with green excelsior.

Just looking at this cheery basket makes me smile!