Colorspots: Gold
Aren’t they beautiful? So humble and ordinary, and yet so perfectly formed. Asher has learned to associate mushrooms with Uncle Teeve, thanks to our walk in the Santa Cruz woodland last November.
Colorspots: Orange
The golds and oranges of autumn are gone now. This calendula plant grows in my backyard. I don’t know why it decided to bloom in January, but I’m grateful to see its sunny face.
I have hopes that it will spread far and wide this spring and summer.
Blushing with Pride
Last year for my birthday, NoNoSays gave me a beautiful pink hydrangea in a 4-inch pot. I planted it in my front yard in a partly shady spot and it has easily quadrupled in size. Its leaves are a charming light green and it’s just beginning to bloom in time for my birthday again.
When I was a little girl, we had a clump of irises in the front yard near our mean neighbors’ house. I rarely visited that side of our yard because the neighbors had big, mean dogs, teenaged mean boys, and a pinched, mean mommy. Every year, though, right around my birthday in May, those irises would burst into the most magnificent purple you ever saw. My mother called them my birthday flower, and over the years, whenever I would begin to get antsy and excited about my impending birthday, she would say, “Go check your birthday flower and see how it’s doing. If it’s blooming it’s your birthday.” For several weeks of the year, I would brave daily visits to that side of the yard to check the progress of the buds.
I’m very happy to have a beautiful birthday flower again. Next week, the day after my birthday, NoNo graduates from CSU Sacramento with a coveted and hard-won design degree. I know that pink hydrangea is blooming for both of us. Thank you, NoNo, and congratulations!
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