The course of the seasons is a piece of clock-work, with a cuckoo to call when it is springtime.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799)

Cool, restless winds have been blowing for the last few weeks with a nice day in between here and there. In spite of this, blooms are popping open day by day in our backyard- a welcome site to see. A friend of mine who lives in New Mexico told me that there was a little snow on her car this morning, yet she has a hyacinth blooming and a golden currant budding. I told her they were raising their heads in defiance. In my imagination, I saw our own flowers “shaking their fists” at the cool air reminding winter weather that, according to the calendar, it is now springtime. Like clockwork, the plants are waking up and our vines are stretching toward the sun. We have more buds on our Lady Banks rose vines than ever before. Last year, there were hardly any! My day lily is returning as well and may need to be repotted this year. To our surprise, our Virginia Creeper is returning with loads of new leaves. We have tried that particular plant in two other areas which it didn’t like. The third time is the charm, we suppose because, in the newer location, it is thriving! Starting in April, our water restrictions begin again, so I know the winds will die down soon, the nice weather will stay for a few weeks, and then the heat will return. It’s such a fun time of year because we find new stray gifts every day in our yard.

Here are the latest stray gifts with descriptions down below.

Top Left: Wisteria branches twisting around each other – how interesting!
Top Middle: Sunset glow on last year’s purple passionflower pods
Top Right: White Lady Banks Roses blooming
Middle Left: Yellow Lady Banks Roses making an appearance as well
Center: Jonathan spotted this web a few days ago. He crunched up a few dried leaves and sprinkled them into the web to see what the spider would do. She didn’t like that at all and immediately proceeded to tidy her space. Jonathan watched her take each leaf piece and push it out of the web. He was highly entertained by that! The winds have beaten up her web the last few days and torn it a bit, yet each morning Jonathan finds the web to be clean and repaired.
Middle Right: The return of our day lily – a plant I bought for $3.00 on clearance a few years ago!
Bottom Left: Random wildflower seeds were planted here, so we are not sure what flowers we will have in this space – a fun surprise!
Bottom Right: This is a scrapbook that a long-time friend of ours from Washington State made us. In it, are photos of Jonathan and our family that I did not even know she had! She wrote special memories by the photos and wrote notes on each page. What a gift of love! The book arrived around the time we were packing for our trip to see West Texas A&M University in Canyon, TX where Jonathan has been accepted into their Master of Arts Program in History. Tears rolled down our faces as we looked through the precious photos she had collected. A stray gift, for sure, and a priceless treasure!

(Photo Credit for this blog entry’s image belongs to my friend Kara who lives in Pennsylvania.)