Inspired to start writing again

Why? Perhaps because I visited my own site the other day on a whim and suddenly missed the joy of taking pictures and posting them for the world to see along with stories and observations about my life on West Pearl. Perhaps because I clicked "next blog" and found the site of a person on a small island off the coast of Scotland and so liked her, from her writing, that I was glad.

Above is a picture taken in the east side yard of my little house. Imagine a whole yard covered with bright blue grape hyacinth. Here is another picture but taken from a distance the flowers do not show up as nicely.

And below is a picture of the crab apple tree in the front yard just about to burst entirely into bloom. You can see the carpet of blue in the background. I live in the upstairs and that nearly hidden window on the top right is my home office which looks right out into the pink!


But, guess what! It also snowed today. And it haled on Wednesday. Will there be any crab apples this year? You can see the blossoms knocked to the ground in the last picture. It is so amazing to me that the opening of the crab apple blossoms coincides with our last snowfall of the year so many times! Are there enough flowers not yet opened and not knocked down by hale? Will we have enough of a sunny day that the bees down the street can come find the flowers? We'll have to wait and see. If not... no crab apples in the fall! If there ARE crab apples I will make jelly... if not, perhaps bread.......

Latest "View from the Porch" 10-20-09

I grew up in Kansas City, in the heart of the Great Plains. Unless there was a front moving through, we had the same weather that people hundreds of miles in any direction were having. Not so Boulder or the rest of the front range! On any given day, (south to north) Colorado Springs, Denver, Idaho Springs, Boulder and Fort Collins may all be experiencing different weather (hot here/cold there; clear blue sky here/cloudy and snowing there.) My favorite thing, as an original flatlander, is to step out on my porch and see the line on the hillsides above which it is snowing and below which there is rain. This is exactly what is happening in this most recent "view from the porch." Snow up the hillside. Rain on my neighborhood.

Cherries!

There is a pie-cherry tree down the street just like the ones my grandmother used to have in her yard. It is a good year, meaning the cherry blossoms didn't get snowed on and since the tree is across the street from a hive of bees tucked down into the center of 140 year old Cottonwood trees, there were ample bees to pollinate the flowers. Now the cherries are starting to get ripe.

The cherries ripening always makes me remember the time my grandmother took me home with her on the bus. Luckily there was another little girl my age on the bus and we played happily on the twin seats as her mother and my grandmother sat behind us. She got off the bus about sunset and I promptly told my grandmother I was ready to go home now. I was shocked when she told me we were hundreds of miles away from home by now. I had been on long rides in the car before with my mother but when it was time to go home we could always just turn around and go there within minutes. That we had been driving steadily AWAY all this time shocked me!

My grandmother tried to comfort me as I cried. "Don't you want to see the cherries in the back yard?" she said, trying to coax me into cheerfulness.

I was up before dawn, out the back door, took a quick look at the cheeries and went back upstairs to wake up grandma and tell her I had seen the cherries, now I wanted to go home. I was a sad little pumpkin when I finally realized I was stuck at Grandma's house for a full week.

But she did let me eat all the cherries I wanted! And being spoiled rotten for a week was not a bad experience either!

It wasn't until I moved to this neighborhood that I realized that when the cherries ripen it is the anniversary of my week with my grandmother as a five-year-old!

Summer: The Little Boys Are At War Again!

I don't know what program this is but every year groups of little boys go to war in the pocket park across from my house. It is evidently a Boulder summer program because each group comes with teacher in tow. They troop down the sidewalk draped in capes and sometimes helmets, armed with nerf swords and bravado.

Clearly they are having a good time and there isn't a one with attention deficit disorder when it comes to sword fighting! They are all utterly focused and alive. Their shouts ring through the neighborhood.

I do sometimes wonder what their parents are thinking having their boys spend the summer practicing ancient arts of warfare and killing. But clearly the boys like it!

Tim Goes On A Diet

I promise the next time I write in this blog it won't be about Tim but I have to put in this one.

I took Tim to the vet in April. As I suspected he is overweight to the tune of about 2 pounds. The vet said I should cut back on his food. Actually, what the vet said was to mix in some canned pumpkin into his food, and Tim ate it too! Tim will eat just about anything I put in front of him. But the pumpkin didn't agree with him. So I have been trying to just cut back on feeding him so much. He gets a good serving of wet cat food at 6 am, and usually (now) a very small snack at noon, and then the other half of his wet food ration at 5:00 pm. I am beginning to wonder if Tim actually knows how to read clocks because at 5 pm on the button he is always right at my elbow. It was pretty awful the first few days but I thought we were beginning to come to terms with the kitchen door being closed once in awhile. The begging and the horror of an empty bowl was beginning to dim... but then, what should I find on my front porch today but this:


Now Tim wears bells. Two of them. And an ID tag that rattles against the bells when he walks. It has been over a year since Tim "hunted" anything. And I am afraid he may have gotten one of my "friends" today because there are a few squirrels that come to the porch for almonds. But I have to wonder... could it be that Tim decided to do something about his hunger? He brought the squirrel right up onto the porch and left it at the front door. He didn't try to eat any of it but... could it have been a message?

Look at this face and you tell me what you think!

Forget-Me-Nots

The air is sweet with the smell of damp earth and blooming flowers right now. It is a quintessential pleasure sitting outdoors in the evening in the comfortable chair under the tree in the front garden. I am, of course, bothered by the weeding I have not done and the leaves I have not raked.... but over all there are more important things.

I was working late at my computer last night when some quality of the light outside my windows caught my attention. Everything was suffused with an apricot glow. The alpine light was reflecting down from the clouds upon the earth. I didn't even grab my camera, I just ran for the front door. These moments are all too brief as the sun sets, and sets, and sets quickly.

I wait each year for the week when the Forget-Me-Nots bloom. Those tiny blue flowers tug at my heart!

Ever-Changing Views from the Porch

About a month ago
a few days later

about a week ago at dawn


a day later

today!

xxx