Those little specks of white

Those little specks of white aren’t fertilizer….it’s hail. A quick wind of hail blew in this afternoon and left just as quickly. It’s just Mother Nature’s way of saying….”It ain’t spring yet!”  But did you notice that the daffodils are up?

A little Spring decorating

It’s almost Easter and time to put out a few Spring decorations. Even though the forsythia outside hasn’t even begun to show a bud I always like to put this bouquet on my piano.



And what would Easter be without eggs?



This year I made a Spring basket.



And we couldn’t have spring without a bunny.



Easter will soon be here. I am looking forward to having all my family around next weekend.

Things to come

No, this isn’t what I see in my little garden. This is last year’s picture. But I so wanted to see blooming flowers that I am in Pretendland. Spring is on the way. At least that’s what I hear.

Where, oh where is spring?

Bradfordian lament.

I’m tired of being cold. The temperature today has been in the lower 40’s and damp. I’m determined not to put my winter coat on again. I’ve been wearing it since November. Six months is long enough to keep putting it on in the morning. Where is spring?

Don’t you love little girls?

What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice and everything
nice.

Oh, Glorious day

Oh, glorious day!
When sunbeams warm the skin.
And the air is fresh and the wind so mellow
And the ground still damp with rain.
Soak it in, this glorious day.
Raise your face to the sky.
Feel the heat in the air and the smell of
the earth.
Let your thoughts explode and wander
towards the energy of the world.
This glorious day.
Placed here at this time just for your
enjoyment.
Take it in.
Take it in.

As you can tell by my poem the sun inspired me. It was very warm today and I enjoyed it tremendously. I didn’t even take a picture because I was so busy with cleaning projects and walking Sadie. So here is another one that I made using Photoshop.

Signs of Spring

I’ve been looking for signs that spring is really here. The faithful robins returned to the north despite having to pull their worms from frozen ground. The optimistic robins hopped through the snow knowing that soon the weather would have to change. And the daffodils pushed up their slender leaves, yearning for the sun.
 

But the one thing I had been searching for finally arrived..a spring flower. The crocus popped up with its bright purple bloom.

Spring must surely be here now giving us hope that more color, buds, and finally leaves would be arriving soon.  

Little darling, it’s been a long cold lonely winter. Little darling, it seems like years since its been clear. Here comes the sun.

Bits and Pieces

Isn’t it funny how you learn things in bits and pieces and then one day all the little things you learn suddenly coalesce into one big comprehensive idea. I’ve been learning to manipulate pictures using different methods in Photoshop for a few years now. There is a steep learning curve for Photoshop and so I’ve studied different ideas on the web and practiced. I started with digital scrapbooking and went to actual photographic work. Yesterday I found word art and downloaded some. Here are some pictures I created.
 

Snow Damn..age!

The continuous snow last night weighed heavy on the trees causing a lot of branches to fall. A main branch of our old crabapple tree out front fell broke off and fell last night. The snow in the woods makes it hard for the deer to find food. There was a whole herd at the neighbor's feeder this morning.

Enough already!

All right, all right…enough of the snow.It is coming down fast and furious and it looks more like December than April. The roads were bad this morning and the ground is once again covered. I was out having my hips x-rayed first thing this morning for suspected arthritis. Then off to coffee, for water aerobics and to deliver a small bookcase to one of the gift stores downtown to use for displays.
    I’ve been busy since I got home doing household chores. It’s a good day to be inside. I refuse to put up another picture of snow because my sisters (who live in the south) are starting to pity me. So here is a picture of the mug the universe gave me today. The universe has been very good to me in the past. It’s part of the Law of Attraction. Send out what you want and the universe will provide it. When I was in the gift store today I saw a really beautiful spring mug, but knowing that I have more cups than I need I passed it up. From the gift store I went to the newspaper to renew my subscription and for starting up again I got a $15 gift certificate from the Chamber of Commerce. So I took the money back to the gift store and bought the mug……the universe just wanted me to have it!!LOL
I love the universe!!

Do you feel it?

It’s only 30 degrees and it’s snowing hard (again). Do you feel Spring? I don’t yet. It’s hard to get bunnies and eggs out when it feels like you should be putting out your Christmas decorations.
   But I have got Spring cleaning fever. It’s a disease that comes over women about this time of year when they feel like cleaning out the nest. I started in my computer room. I’m on the hunt for a new computer desk which will be smaller than the built in one that’s been here since we bought the house. It’s about time for a change. We joke at our house that we move like turtles when it comes to changing things. But little by little we’ve tried to modernize. I am so ready to get rid of things (and you have to be in that kind of mood when you organize). I plan on taking things to a sale in the summer so I’m gathering everything in the house that I don’t want and putting it in boxes to go. Today I decided that I had to give up my old printer. When I bought my new computer the package came with a printer. So I stuck the other one under the desk and kept it as a copier. But I didn’t copy much and the ink dried out and it’s very expensive to keep replacing it in the hopes that it will be ready when I want to make a copy. Do I’m letting it go. (Now I have to find the software that came with it).
  I also had Don put a shelf unit right into the back of my van. I’ve had it forever..but it’s time has come. I will drop it off at the Goodwill tomorrow. It was hard to let go of it for some reason..I like storage units…but there is no longer a place in my house for it. I’m pretending I’m on Clean House and letting things go out the door. Are you proud of me?

  

Maple syrup

“When made in small quantities—that is, quickly from the first run of sap and properly treated—it has a wild delicacy of flavor that no other sweet can match. What you smell in freshly cut maple-wood, or taste in the blossom of the tree, is in it. It is then, indeed, the distilled essence of the tree.”

John Burroughs, Signs and Seasons, 1886

Homemade maple syrup has no comparison. Don has been tapping trees  and boiling syrup for our personal use for many years now. There is nothing better than fresh maple syrup over pancakes. There is a lot of work involved. Wood has to be gathered for the fire. Trees need to be tapped and then sap gathered each day and carried home. Then there are hours of boiling since it takes 40 gallons of sap to make just one gallon of syrup. Then there is finishing, straining, and bottling this liquid gold. It’s four weeks of hard work, but so worth the effort.


Don finishes boiling the sap down in the kitchen, then bottles it. Mmmmm!
 

April day

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two month back in the middle of March.
    -Robert Frost


A perfect poem for today. Spring this year is coming slowly but typically April. Today I went to a few church rummage sales and came home with a decorating book. Lots of pretties there, but I’m working on getting things out of the house, not brining more in. My new  motto is “Use what you have”. Tonight Don and I are going out to dinner and see the new movie Source Code. (Date night)

April fool’s day

The first day of April and I’m glad it’s here. The snow is still falling (again and again) and I think everyone in Bradford has cabin fever. We’d all like to take a cruise or go to Florida to escape this constant cold weather. Don is still busy cooking maple syrup outside in his cooker while I spend the days inside cleaning out dresser drawers (doesn’t that sound exciting?) It’s that time of year when one can get (shall I say it?) bored easily. It’s not that there aren’t books to read or dinners to cook, it’s just that I’ve been doing that all winter long and now would like to get outside. The high spot of my week has been the photoshop class that I took this past week. Here are some more of my creations. The first is a shot of some yellow boots taken at Children’s Lake in Boiling Springs. The second is Biltmore in Ashville, NC. It’s a wonderful place to visit and we’ve been there in three seasons.
This lake view is of Jacki Norton’s lake behind her house.

Last winter we took a vacation and walked along the ocean here.

Fresh snow

I know, I know. I promised no more snow pictures. But this morning I had to take the camera out to get some landscape pictures to practice my texture lessons with. Here are the results.

Never stop learning

If I ever had a motto it would have to be “Never stop learning”. Discovering how to do something new brings joy and creativity into my life. I am so happy that I am on the cusp of the computer age and am able to make the transition to a wide world of learning through the web. I am taking a course online with Kim Klassen and have learned to further manipulate photos in a way that is artistic for me. Here are some of today’s homework. These pictures were taken by me at Letchworth Park a few years ago. My family and I traveled up there for the day and were fortunate to come upon a hot air balloon launch. I think these pictures have the quality of old time postcards.

Saturday,….really?

I can’t believe I haven’t posted since Thursday. When you are sick the days seems to go by so slowly. I got really tired of laying around and watching tv but didn’t feel like doing much else. I looked like some kinda monster because my face was so swollen with two slits for eyes. Today I look better but still not feeling one hundred percent yet. I think I’ll stay in another day and by Monday I hope to be much better. Here are a few pictures I worked on in my online class.

My friend, Lynda

This picture of my friend, Lynda Rook was taken by our Literary Club speaker. I took it from her blog and moved it here because I just love the picture. Lynda is one of my coffee friends. She is a super lady who is an angel on earth. She is so very kind to everyone and never says no. What a wonderful person.

Have you ever?

Have you ever noticed how things can be going along just fine and then…boom! A little cold virus sneaked up on me this week putting me down on the couch all day yesterday with a runny nose and chest congestion. Today with meds I’m feeling a little better but I’ve just lost two whole days.
    Today I felt good enough to continue the course I’m taking online to learn how to  make my photographs better using Photoshop Elements. Kim Klassen is a great teacher, showing videos of step by step lessons and then providing practice time. Here are a few of my creations from the course. 

Eleanor

After my mother, Eleanor Garthwaite, passed away I found this unusual object when we were cleaning out the house. We weren’t sure exactly what it was. It had a heavy metal base and five tall rods with clips at the end. I use it to hold some pictures of my mother and my grandfather.

This shot is the only picture I have of my grandfather, Walter Todd. It was taken in 1963 as he was loading a wagon to prepare to take his sons and my dad on a fishing trip.

My grandfather’s great-grandfather came to the United States from Ireland, but the family was originally from Scotland.  They landed in new York in 1812 and in April they purchased a conestoga wagon and journeyed south to Hanover, Pennsylvania which took them a month or so. They spent the summer there and continued on to South Carolina in the fall. In the family history this is said of my grandfather: “The Lord must have looked upon the marriage of uncle Walter and Aunt Alder with favor, they were blessed with a large family. They always impressed me as being two happy people. Uncle Walter had the facility of making people happy.  There was always laughter when he was present. To me that is a virtue within itself. He was such a warm and lovely man.”

This is one of my favorite pictures of my mother. She was chasing my father with a broom. Dad was a tease and I can just imagine her swinging that broom at him. The house behind was where my mother grew up in Eastern Georgia. Dad was a Yankee and he promised her that he would always take her home once a year when they married. And he stayed true to his word. Every year, during the first two weeks of July we traveled south. I remember playing in the sand under those black walnut trees in the picture.

I’m crazy about this picture of my mom checking her makeup in the side mirror of my dad’s first car.

I’ll bet mom was only sixteen when this picture was taken.

My mom was a wonderful lady and when I look at these photos I catch a glimpse of her youth.