Today at the beach

O to have life henceforth a poem of new joys!
To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on!
To be a sailor of the world bound for all ports,
A ship itself, (see indeed these sails I spread to the sun and air,)
A swift and swelling ship full of rich words, full of joys.

- walt whitman

a winters hike

"That all the jarring notes of life

Seem blending in a psalm

And the angles of its strife

Slow rounding into calm.

And so the shadows fall apart,

And so the west-winds play;

And all the windows of my heart

I open to the day."

John Greenleaf Whittier, 1919

Finding Clover

Gratitude for bees...

“The careful insect 'midst his works I view, Now from the flowers exhaust the fragrant dew, With golden treasures load his little thighs, And steer his distant journey through the skies.”  John Gay

The last of the blueberries

Spring Harvest

A day's harvest.

Spring party preparation

Garden's feast...

emerging spring...

blueberry blossoms

Yesterday the twig was brown and bare

To-day the glint of green is there

Tomorrow will be leaflets spare
I know no thing so wondrous fair,
No miracle so strangely rare.
I wonder what will next be there!
L.H. Bailey

all grown up...

(the eighth chicken)

Nature's art supplies...

 Commonweal Garden

Horsetail (pink)

 Coreopsis (yellow)

 Oakgulls cooking...

 Coffeeberry  and Monkey Flower/CA Sage/Coyote Brush

 Mordering...

round two... :)

The Gladness of Nature

The Gladness of Nature by William Cullen Bryant

Is this a time to be cloudy and sad, 

When our mother Nature laughs around; 

When even the deep blue heavens look glad, 

And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground? 

There are notes of joy from the hang-bird and wren, 

And the gossip of swallows through all the sky; 

The ground-squirrel gaily chirps by his den, 

And the wilding bee hums merrily by. 

The clouds are at play in the azure space, 

And their shadows at play on the bright green vale, 

And here they stretch to the frolic chase, 

And there they roll on the easy gale. 

There's a dance of leaves in that aspen bower, 

There's a titter of winds in that beechen tree, 

There's a smile on the fruit, and a smile on the flower, 

And a laugh from the brook that runs to the sea. 

And look at the broad-faced sun, how he smiles 

On the dewy earth that smiles in his ray, 

On the leaping waters and gay young isles; 

Ay, look, and he'll smile thy gloom away.

Spring happenings...

digging...

amending...

.

growing :)

... and checking the weather

Garden creatures...

Mr. Vole-Hunter

(the former) Mr. Vole

Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud

   That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

   A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

   And twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretched in never-ending line

   Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they

   Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee:

A Poet could not but be gay,

   In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

 For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

   Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

~William Wordswort

Spring cleaning