Ginty's Pond and Similkameen colours

 Here we are; tucked in down in the Similkameen for a couple of weeks.   

David and I and David's mom went for a delightful drive the other day to enjoy the sights and sounds of spring.  The whole world here is bluebird coloured.

 

Here is a link to Mum's post about the same drive ~ we talked about dueling blog posts : ) since we were both clicking away on our cameras while David toured us around... most enjoyable!!  

 

 

Heading south for a few weeks . . .

Think, every morning when the sun peeps through 

The dim, leaf-latticed windows of the grove, 

How jubilant the happy birds renew 

Their old, melodious madrigals of love! 

And when you think of this, remember too 

'T is always morning somewhere, and above 

The awakening continent; from shore to shore, 

                 Somewhere the birds are singing evermore.  

                

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Tales of a Wayside Inn

 

Mid March and David and I make our annual trek south to the Okanagan and Similkameen to visit family, gather prunings from the orchards for next years rings, do a little rock hunting for interesting inlays and quickly down to Vancouver to see medical specialists who seem for the most part to gravitate closer to the 49th parallel along with the rest of Canada's population. 

We're maybe a little bushed, having been glued to the meadow since last June. It's been a difficult 6 months for us with David landing in hospital due to an acutely herniated disc in his back, and then the death of his dear Dad back in November... been a tough go.  

Vincent is back home on the meadow so we know that all will be well taken care of here. The blackbirds are back too, about 20 now and more every day.  Juncos, flickers, and our spring meadowlark should show up soon ... 

We leave as we do almost every year, just as spring begins to show her bright green head here and there through the expanses of snow which until now have been broken only by the paw prints of foxes, coyotes, rabbits, moose and our own tracks.

Down south it will be early spring.
In a few weeks we will have the added bonus of arriving back home to enjoy our own early spring. And life is good.

Still February but Spring will come

In homage to Spring, which is little ways off yet in our neck of the woods,

a vintage image of Heartsease.

 

  

Heartsease /Johnny-Jump-Up

 From the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic plants a little about this harbinger of spring.

Scientific Name: Viola tricolor

Jefferson recorded sowing seeds of "Tricolor" at Shadwell, his boyhood home, on April 2, 1767. It was grown in American gardens before 1700, although the first documented citation known is by John Lawson in History of Carolina (1718). Native over large areas of Europe and western Asia, this ancestor of our modern pansy has many common names, including wild pansy, ladies' delight, and jump-up-and-kiss-me. The name "pansy" derives from the French word pensée, an analogy used by Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet: "and there is pansies, that's for thoughts." It is a hardy, spring-flowering perennial grown as an annual with charming, pansy-like flowers showing three colors in shades of purple, yellow, and white.

Here is another freely shared vintage card from this website; http://wordplay.hubpages.com/hub/vintage-flowers# where you will also find  a collection of vintage images of birds and birthday cards and roses and seed packets.  A delightful wander for a moment or two while the snow continues to melt.

 

Just 10 miles down the road at our nearest neighbours homestead we hear the Blackbirds have returned.  This is early for our redwinged beauties to be back so perhaps spring is closer than we think.  This pic is from spring two years ago.

 

Misty days and so much love

Yesterday was February 14th ~ Valentine's day.  

It snowed lightly most of the day and into the evening.

 We had a good and productive day but didn't get much solar power.

 

This pic from just before nightfall off the porch at the kitchen door.

 

...and dinner cooking on the wood stove.

 This morning we awoke to a soft misty world ~ pink for just a moment as the sun rose.

 

 

That soft mist hasn't lifted yet and it's almost 9 am.

Still, it's brightening up ... we will get some juice to our solar panels,

certainly enough to power our work;

David in his wood ring workshop and me on my laptop.

    

I want to take a walk around the meadow this afternoon.  It's been a couple of days.

 But first to emails and wonderful people to talk with.

The folks who come to us to help them create a wooden ring;

a Touch Wood Ring for the one they love.  And so it is....

Our days are full of love. Yours and Ours and life is good.

Perhaps it will be bright and sunny this afternoon when I go on a walkabout and then I will come back with a camera full of pics that hint at the end of winter =)

Till next time 

With love.

 

 

 

February - those weeks between winter and spring

It really is still very much winter here on the meadow but we've had lots of warm sunny days that tease us into thinking spring might be around the corner.  We are at a high elevation and although we are not 'northern' by any stretch of the imagination, our friends and family a little further south will see spring a good deal sooner than we will.  Still... February feels like the bridge between hard core winter and the sweet green edges of early spring. 

Our moose have been hanging about. Waking up here and grazing on abundant willow. David almost always knows when our four legged visitors are here before we see them.  Moose sense.

 The rising sun turning the snow covered meadows mauve and pink.

Back and forth ...some snowy days and those are pretty too.  Nothing like a fresh coat of white to perk things up after a few sunny days of melt.

Blue skies most days now.  We drove out to see where two new bridges are being set in to replace old and worn out crossings...

Sunday morning... bright and beautiful and pretty chilly too.

 Thanks for dropping by.   Till next time ~ be well and may spring find you early.