Kaymusings

I think everyone really likes to see trees and enjoys their special beauty.  I am no exception.

A good many years ago, an older friend told me as winter lingered on and on, “I am so longing to see the trees with leaves on again.  They are so much prettier with leaves on.”  I felt sad for her that she wasn’t able to enjoy the stark beauty of the leafless trees.  I enjoy both stages of the trees.

I don’t recall whether I told her how much I like to see the skeleton structure of the winter/spring trees.  I like to try to draw them.  Their intricate form intrigues me.

Of course, I still enjoy them when winter finally lets go and the leaves are formed on the trees.  I took the picture of this tree before the leaves started to bud out.  I was thinking that some day I will try to draw it.

But for now, I’m busy digging weeds out of the flower beds.

Remembering my mom.

The other morning when I was preparing my oatmeal, I suddenly remembered an incident in my parents’ courtship that my mom told me about years ago.

It was early in their courtship and my dad came to the house rather early in the morning, and unexpectedly.  Mom had started to make oatmeal for breakfast. She had water boiling in a pot and had added salt, in anticipation of adding the oats.  When Dad came to the door, she got “addled.”  She was surprised to see him so early and unexpectedly.  She offered him a cup of coffee and he accepted. So she made coffee. Since she had water already boiling on the stove, she used that water to make the coffee.  She forgot all about the salt in the water.  As I remember, she said that Dad didn’t drink his coffee and she didn’t know why, until after he had gone and she then remembered that she had put salt in the water.  No wonder he didn’t want the coffee.

I loved thinking about my mom and dad in the early stage of their courtship when they would both be flustered and pleased to see each other early in the morning.  Mom was so eager to offer him a good cup of coffee and Dad was so reluctant to embarrass her by telling her it was too salty to drink.  They laughed about it later.  They truly loved each other and were always kind to each other.  I have good memories!

I hadn’t repainted these two bird feeders for a number of years.  Last week I gave them two coats of the white paint and this week I painted some decorative flowers on the sides.  Then I varnished them for a little additional protection from the weather.

I’ve been spending a lot of time outdoors doing yard work.  I keep thinking that I’ll get back to more computer time, but as long as the weather is good for me to work outdoors, I really need to spend time getting the flower beds looking better. The flowers are doing their best but the weeds are doing their best, too.  Weeding and spading tires me out.

We’ve also started to work in the Hospice Garden of Life for this new season.  On Monday, we started to spread the new mulch.  We do this every spring.  Right now we can only do this in the places where we won’t be planting annuals.  After those flowers are planted, we will add the mulch in those areas, too.  We cleaned out under the bird feeders and put down new bark cloth and weed killer and then the new red wood mulch.  It took a lot of bending, as well as lifting and carrying the buckets of mulch.  We won’t plant until June 2.

We had frost here last night.  I didn’t think we were going to have it that cold here last night.  Soon we’ll be past the frosty mornings.

Scenery near Union City.

I wanted to draw some “spring trees” for the art show.  I was on my way home from my dog’s vet in Erie and I had my camera along.  I wasn’t driving so I was able to take some pictures through the car window as we traveled.  I think I got some interesting pictures and I like this one best. This is just a little bit east of Union City.  Once I saw a heron standing in the creek in this area.  Now I always look to see if I might see a heron again.  No heron was there when I took this picture, but I really like this photo.

And, by the way, Rusty is having some age related problems but he’s doing really well.  A couple of pills each morning keeps him feeling fine.