spring

A Bumpy Road to Spring

/ Pat / 11 Comments

It has been a rocky road to spring since we returned to Michigan from a month in North Carolina. We expected some cold while in North Carolina in February and I think it got down to the high 30s some nights – but we hardly noticed except for putting an extra blanket on our bed. After all, it was colder in Michigan. As the month progressed the daffodils started blooming, flowering trees exploded with color, and I had a pot of pansies by our entrance.

A grounds keeper in Old Salem was cleaning out leaves from around growing plants.

And flowers were beginning to bloom in Old Salem and the Salem College campus.

We visited the Reynolda Gardens of Wake Forest University where beds were being prepared for summer plantings, seeded beds were labeled, and spring flowers were blooming. It made me eager to return to my garden in Michigan to start my spring “cleaning.”

The road that I (and my camera) take are not always well planned out and when I do plan, I don’t always end up with the images I had imagined. For the 78th year in a row, the road to spring in Michigan took me by surprise. Even though I suffered through another change to daylight savings time and the Vernal Equinox is just three days away, March is still acting more like winter than spring.

The Lens-Artist Photo Challenge this week is “The Road Most Often Taken,” in other words John is asking us about our favorite subject to photograph. I have a hard time resisting flowers, and I have suffered mightily during my winter of exile in Michigan (is that a bit over-dramatic?) so until the flowers are blooming here in the north, my camera is taking a loooooong-winter’s nap on the shelf.

Wildflowers From a Day in June

/ Pat / 12 Comments

Not only am I switching from glorious fall color to the gentle spring palette, I’m also going back to 2015 to find photos I really like but never published. I think I am looking for a simpler time – although I know that all times in our lives have hardships and frustrations. It is just easier to put a rosy glow on the past after it has mellowed a bit with age, and we slip into selective memory mode. I wonder what our memories and history books will do with this pandemic.

Thanks, Becky, for the wide open invitation to post some photos (squares of course) from our past files.

Spring is Working Its Way North

/ Pat / 4 Comments

We did our annual “spring-in-reverse” trip north last week-end, stopping in Berea, Kentucky for a night at the historic Boone Tavern Hotel. We have stopped here before and the tulips were always at the end of their season, with only a few late-blooming ones in bloom. Not this year – this year we hit them at their peak. They felt like “lens-candy.”

Berea College provides free tuition to young people who have come to the U.S. for asylum so they can get a college degree and also has an arts program that supports the folk arts of the Appellation Mountain region. There are several shops that sell the items that students make so I did a little shopping before having supper in the Boone Tavern dinning room.

We had an enjoyable drive on Monday, surprised at trees budding green and gold, fruit trees blossoming, and spring flowers blooming in Michigan. On Tuesday afternoon we had snow flurries and woke on Wednesday to…

Obviously the path from winter to spring isn’t always straight. The snow melted by afternoon and each day is getting a little warmer, but shorts and flip-flops will remain in the closet for a while longer. We still have flannel sheets on the bed.

Colorful April at the Farmers’ Market

/ Pat / 25 Comments

This coming week-end we will be doing our normal spring migration from southern Florida to southern Michigan, approximately 1,340 miles straight up Interstate-75, and I’ll have to do my bi-annual, mind-bending adjustment to change in climate and environment. Current place (Florida) includes April colors of sunflowers and garden produce as the local growing season is drawing to a close. Farmers’ Markets have been busy with both permanent and seasonal residents.

This final week in Florida means that I am using up foods in the frig as we balance our last at-home meals cooked with what-is-left ingredients and going out to favorite restaurants for mid-afternoon dining with friends. Friends and kids are asking why we aren’t staying a couple more weeks – given that Covid is out of control and snow is in the forecast for Michigan. Ummmm, I don’t know – except that the food is about gone in the frig and we have a pile of stuff in the living room ready to go into the car.

And we’re ready to go home. It doesn’t matter whether we are in Florida spring or Michigan fall, I want to go home. I miss the friends in the neighborhood we aren’t in, I miss the differing activities of the other place, I miss the trees and flowers and landscapes. I want to go home because whatever home I’m going to has something to feed my mind and soul and body.

The color I expect to find in Michigan during the third week of April will be fairly drab with small punches of bright, spring color. Nighttime lows will be around freezing and daytime highs around 50 degrees F. Fields are still too wet to plow and the soil will have to warm up before they can be planted. Winter wheat fields planted last fall are now bright green and there is a flush of red leaf buds along the tops of tree rows between fields. Maybe there will also be greening of undergrowth in the wooded areas of our neighborhood, daffodils growing in the parks, and flowering trees on city streets.

I know I will eagerly await the full spring color of May in Michigan, and then worry about the lack of color as the spring blooms fade but surprised when summer color comes with blooming annuals and perennials in gardens. And before I know it I’ll be visiting farm markets with tables full of fresh fruits and vegetables.

My inspiration for this post was provided by Amy’s Lens-Artist Photo Challenge #143 – Colorful April. Thanks Amy, and I really enjoyed your beautiful photographs of April Color.

Thinking of Spring and COVID-19

/ Pat / 17 Comments

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We are sheltering at home except for essentials here in southwest Florida. Some of our friends/neighbors have left for homes up north due to Covid-19 – one couple to Toronto because their insurance won’t cover Covid-19 treatment in the US and another couple back to Missouri because both have conditions that increase their vulnerability and they want to be near family and familiar doctors. We’ve been wondering when we should head home, doing a constant cost/benefit analysis. So far the benefits of staying in Florida are winning.

Friday marked the beginning of spring, but it wasn’t much noticed in Florida. Spring isn’t celebrated in Florida like it is in Michigan. It is hard to get excited about the awakening of nature in Florida because this subtropical climate doesn’t have a dormant season. Plants only slow down their growth a little in the dryer winter months and there are always some flowering plants to add patches of glorious color to the landscape. No landscape of drab blacks, browns, and greys here.

On the other hand, the first day of spring can seem like a cruel joke in Michigan. We don’t rush into spring in Michigan, the photos featured on this post were taken middle of May last year at Hidden Lake Gardens in the southern-most part of the state. For people in Michigan, the first day of spring is a celebration of hope that spring will really come – some day soon. I grew up hearing that “March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb.” I remember years when we observed that march came in like a lamb and out like a lion. Yes, we have had some really big snowstorms in late March and April.

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When I use my logic, I know that our quality of life is better where we live in Florida than where we live in Michigan. Here I have sunshine every day, our livingroom and diningroom are open to our screened lanai so I hear birds all day long, I have ready access to plentiful fresh fruits and vegetables at the market a mile down the street, I have daily access to our pool and a great neighborhood to bike in, and I can always drive into the Everglades if I need to run away for a day.

Through my writing I am realizing that it is my grief that is driving my desire to go north, even though my head says I’m better here. I feel a deep loss from loosing church services at a church that feeds our soul, my weekly visits to the Naples Botanical Garden, not having the miles of beautiful beach available for a morning visit or an evening sunset.

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I miss not being able to go to my favorite family-owned restaurants for a cozy, fun meal with Jim and I worry about the financial viability of these restaurants and other small businesses I frequent. Most of all I worry about the service staff that we have gotten to know, who now are facing an uncertain future without sufficient income. Their faces pop into my head and I want to help them but don’t know how.

If I look inside myself, I feel a very heavy heart and a soul that is weeping. Life as I knew it is being shaken, the ground has shifted so it no longer feels stable. It is real for me, as Jim just left to go to the drugstore for some items. I know that he is more likely to get sick because he is a male but I also know that cabin fever attacks him much more quickly than it does me. When he gets home I’ll remind him to wash his hands long and well. I feel sad about our (all of us) loss of security. We don’t know what will happen and no one likes the feeling of loosing a sense of control – maybe that is why people are hoarding toilet paper.

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I remember reading about a study a long time ago, of depression in old people living in nursing homes caused by the almost total loss of control. In one study they gave each resident a geranium to care for and in another they gave them a bird in a bird cage that they needed to feed and clean up after. In both cases the people were given control over something and their moods improved. They became happier people better able to handle the stress of aging within their living environment.

I can take control of several aspects of my life even though the threats I encounter come from a little known virus that is raging through our population and experts are projecting will get much worse before it gets better. Thanks to our freedom of the press and excellent access to social media I can gain a sense of control by informing myself of facts. I listen mostly to MSNBC because I appreciate the army of experts that they interview throughout the day. I read the Washington Post and get updates from the New York Times. I refuse to accept the propaganda of a deep state that is out to get us. The deep state consists of thousands of government employees who have dedicated their lives to making sure citizens are helped by government services. I refuse to be one of the people who believes that facts are fake news. I refuse to be someone who doesn’t listen to news because “experts” are saying something different and they don’t know who to believe. If I am going to maintain some control I need to make decisions – and to make decisions I need information. I need information from multiple sources and to think about who is trustworthy – based on their education and work experience. Over time I have learned that I can’t trust our president but I can trust journalists who tell us what they have learned and who they learned it from. I trust experts while always questioning motives and bias.

I gain a sense of control every time I make a decision to wash hands, stay home, and abide by other guidelines given us by the CDC and experts on infectious deceases and pandemics. I know I am in control when I eat healthy meals and do what I can to get good sleep to keep my immune system strong. I know I have some control over the outcome of this pandemic when I reach out with a phone call, a written note, or through social media to share assurance or comfort or just fun conversation with people I know. I know I will be able to cope with isolation by keeping active with knitting, quiltmaking, editing photo files, working puzzles, exercise, reading and maintaining safe social contact with others.

I have a plan and I know I will do okay during this shitty time (no I didn’t buy extra toilet paper). Do you have a plan? How can you maintain a sense of control?

Blessings and stay well.