Signs of Spring Here on Serendipity!

One daffodil showed up first.

There will be more every day now.

Grow little onions! Grow!

They're covered with soil now.  

I'll be watching for green shoots soon.

What a lovely surprise! Crocuses!  

They came in a gift basket from my daughter last Mother's Day. 

After they finished blooming, I put the bulbs in the flower row.

Yay, they came back!

Another surprise... 

One of our "hens" has grown really big... and has long green tail feathers... 

and struts around like a boss... and has started crowing before dawn...

We call him Bob.

Seed trays are in the room with the most sun!

Can you guess the reason we have to keep that door closed?

Happy hens! (And, Bob.)

Spring cleaning should also be a sign of spring, but see those precious little handprints on the glass panels? I discovered them a while back. Since the little one who put them there has moved so far away, I don't have the heart to wipe them off!

Happy Spring!

Kitty in the Drawer

Honestly, Buff...
Is an open drawer an invitation to lounge in a new space?

I take that as a yes.

Be Careful What You Wish For...

At the end of winter or beginning of spring, we had an idea.  We thought it would be fun to hack a trail from one end of our woods to the other.  It would be like an adventure through the forest we could walk with our grandbabies.  We gave an attempt at making it, but the woods was just an overgrown impossible mass of vines and trees and weeds and briers and brambles.  In the end, we decided that it wasn't feasible for us to do.

Be careful what you wish for...

Yesterday morning...
A guy from the utilities department came by.  He said they needed to trim a path under the power line that runs through the woods from the highway. He acted like he was asking permission, but really he was just making me aware.  
They did it the year after the ice storm of the century in 2009.  Their plan is to do it every 5-10 years so that there will never be another time when so many power lines get broken by falling branches and trees.

Yesterday afternoon...
There was a cacophony of chainsaws inside our woods.  I couldn't see them, but there was no question that they were wasting no time getting to it.

This morning...
There was a noise of destruction like I've never heard before.  I can only describe it as a cross between Dr. Seuss's Super-Axe-Hacker from The Lorax and a mechanical version of the Tasmanian Devil.

 

I could see it through the trees a little bit.  It would drive into a pile of yesterday's debris and start chewing and snarling and biting and tossing and pulverizing.  

After a while I just had to have a look.  I walked through the 10 feet of woods and could not believe it...
I walked up the swath of devastation and watched the Tasmanian Super-Axe-Hacker work.  In only a few minutes the nice guy in an orange hardhat came down to chat.  I could only say, "Wow..."   He said, "This will all grow back.  We just have to keep a path for the power line. That machine throws a lot of stuff a pretty far distance."  He didn't actually ask me to leave (my own property), but the work did come to a halt until I did.  And, I noticed he kept an eye out that I kept going back. 

Perhaps you think I might be stretching this just a little bit. 

This is the view from my mailbox on the highway. 
See that pole on the right side?
Let me walk up the highway to that pole...

Now you see that pole on the left.
That empty space beside it... was forest yesterday.
Let's take a closer look, shall we?

And... there's the pole, safe from any tree branch, ice storm, or creeping vine.
Courtesy of the Tasmanian Super-Axe-Hacker, yesterdays trees are...
 ... today's mulch.

This was the sight I was met by when I walked through my woods.
If you enlarge it, you'll see the man in the hard hat keeping an eye on both me and the Tasmanian Super-Axe-Hacker.

Look carefully through the trees...
Do you see it?
That's the antagonist of today's story... The Tasmanian Super-Axe-Hacker!

We still have a beautiful view from our drive.
Okay... I know I've been dramatic.
But, seriously... It felt (feels) a little dramatic...

I suppose we did get our trail through the woods that we'd wished for.

There's always some wonder here on Serendipity...

And to think I was going to write about the platter-sized snapping turtle we saw yesterday.  She'd dug a little hole, was backed up to it, and was just dropping her third egg down into the hole.  

Sheesh... and I thought that was an adventure worth telling!!

My Space

Hhhhhhh.... 
     Sigh.....
            This is my space....

♫  ♩ 
     Computer and painting and whiskers on kitten...
          Window to backyard and great chair for sittin'...
               Journals to write in and cell phone that rings...
                    These are a few of my favorite things.
                                                                                    ♪  ♫

Let's see what all is in my space...
It starts with a comfortable chair. My computer and phone are always near.  The little round side table has a drawer with pens and pencils and highlighters.  There's a photo of my husband and pup and another showing the Twenty-third Psalm.  There's a pretty little purple and green box for stuff... markers, bookmarks, notepad, etc.  Each of those journals has its own special purpose.  It's my goal to write something every day. There's a little green quilted cow that lives on the wall and makes me smile.  The painting behind my chair changes according to what is my favorite painting at the time.  And from the window I can see my outside favorite things... chickens, garden, flowerbed...
There is one really important thing that missing from the photo and the painting.  See that little brown cord that seems to come from under the chair?  It leads to an old blue heating pad that's always in the chair.  I highly recommend having one in your spot!  (It just didn't look pretty for the photo!)

Painting of "My Space" in my space.

Buff and Olivia... my office mates

"The Snug" photo by Sara Harley

Sara challenges me to paint things I would never have thought to paint. 

This is one of the Inspiration Images for March's Inspiration Collaboration. There are so many directions you could be inspired to go with this image, but for me... I knew I would paint my space.  

We'd love for you to be inspired and submit your art. Click and see what you think.

Original Oil Painting on 12"x 12" Wrapped Canvas
Not for Sale at this time.  Maybe I'll hang My Space in my space for a while! 😁

Watching the Dogwood Snow

See that beautiful dogwood? When we were building our house, the builder asked if we wanted him to take down the scraggly little tree beside the back porch.  He said it had gotten scuffed up during the building and might not make survive anyway.  When that first spring came and it burst in to big white blossoms, we were so surprised and so glad we'd kept it.  It is pretty scrappy.  Every year wonder if it will last through one more winter. (That's been since 2001!)

This is another in the front near the mailbox.

And we pass these when we go for a walk toward our neighbor's house.

Today was windy, and the petals fell like giant snowflakes.

The 10th painting I did after three months of lessons was of some blossoms from this very tree. (April 2007)

I painted some of her blossoms again for my 300th painting.
(May 2015)

It was a good day to spend on the back porch watching the dogwood snow.... and wonder if our dogwood friend will be here to put on her show next spring.