The Color of Our Days

The world around us is exploding in color, and for our part, we’re trying to capture it all: me with my camera, Miss Muffet with her hands, Baby Noonie with her mouth.

In no particular order, here is the rainbow of our world:

The tree out front (is it a dogwood? a flowering crab? I always forget!) reminds me of my childhood, where we had two tall crabapple trees by the end of our driveway. One of them was this exact shade of pink-nearly-purple.

These grape hyacinth come up every year in the middle of the yard. I think that part of the yard was once a flowerbed, but they don’t mind the company of grass. They’re so tiny they have ALMOST escaped the notice of the Primary Flower Picker of the house.

It probably won’t even be a week from now when I will consider these wood violets to be weeds and I’ll have not-so-nice things to say about them. For now, though, with so few nice days under my belt, I’ll take them. There’s nothing shy about them – they’re EVERYWHERE.

The red tulips just popped out this morning. I remember when my brother-in-law planted them, and every year when the tulips bloom, I think of him – of how much he has grown up in the years I’ve known him (he was in high school when I first met him) and just how swell a guy he is. Inevitably, thinking of him will remind me of Bug, his lovely wife. Thinking of HER will remind me that her birthday is coming up. So, in a way, these tulips are a birthday reminder of the most beautiful variety.

More tulips, of the orange-and-yellow variety…these remind me of sherbet in delicate glass bowls, eaten with a grandma on a screened-in back porch.

*Pause for a contented sigh*
My magnolia blooms.
And life as I know it blossoms into smiles and giggles and happy times.

The bleeding heart. I’ve already said it all here. So ditto that. 🙂

At last! My daffodils begin to bloom! (And, as I predicted, all the town ‘dils are burning up!)

The weeping cherry out front is on the other side of the window where my reading chair is in the living room. I stood under it to get this picture…and it’s an angle that makes me look at it differently when I open the curtains in the living room.

These rhododendrons are new additions from last year, thanks to that brother-in-law-of-tulip-planting-fame. He has a green thumb and a knack for landscaping. But I was in NO way prepared for these purple bursts of joy on the side of my house!

I took this picture the other day, and it’s a good thing I did. No sooner did I come in the house than my Young Flower Enthusiast Assistant was out the door and back in the door, her hands a yellow explosion of tulips, which we promptly put into a pretty glass. I assure you, I used all the twenty-five-cent words I could think of to thank her for the thoughtful bouquet. Those flowers will come back next year, but my daughter will be three for exactly (thankfully!) eight more months. I have to enjoy these bouquets while I can!

And here are the dandelions. Last week they weren’t blooming yet. Now, not surprisingly, they’re EVERYWHERE (competing – and winning – with the wood violets). I look at them and take a lesson from them, every single time.