Birthday Boy, Blooming Blossoms, Big News!

I may not have been blogging lately, but I have been gathering blog fodder! And now I finally have an opportunity to start sharing from my stack o'goodies!

The first bit of news (not the Big News of this post's title, that's coming up in a bit) and main reason for my absence lately is that BW had arthroscopic shoulder surgery on May 15. He had a large, hook-shaped bone spur in the shoulder joint that had badly damaged the bursa and was fraying the rotator cuff - though fortunately the tendon had not yet torn. They removed the spur along with most of his bursa (which will regenerate). 

Other than having wisdom teeth pulled, this was BW's first surgery and he was NOT impressed. The anesthesia really did a number on him and it took him a couple of days to recover from it. He had to be at the hospital at 6:30am and we thought he'd be home by lunch, but they weren't able to release him until 4:30 - and even then, he was still a pretty sick and stoned puppy. He was also unable to do anything with his right hand (and of course he's right-handed) for a couple of weeks, which made me one busy woman! I think BW missed being able to cook most of all, while I seriously missed his ability to mow! :-) He goes to PT three times a week and does an hour of strengthening and mobility exercises at home on the other days, and though he's still limited in what he can do and still experiences pain (especially after a session with the "physical terrorists"), his recovery is going well and he's able to do a lot more now. Hence my ability to finally blog a bit! :-) Because of the physically strenuous duties of his job as a UPS man, he won't be released to return to work until at least July 7th - and he starts 2 weeks of vacation the next day! So I'm getting to enjoy the daily pleasure of his company, and staying up late watching Netflix is making us feel like kids on summer vacation! :-) In fact, the surgery and time off for recovery gave him time to reflect on the wear and tear his job of 23+ years has on his body, our financial situation, and our priorities - and he decided to retire on July 31st! So at most he has nine working days left. He can hardly wait to start using this clock! :-)

It will really hit home when Christmas rolls around. I was not terribly surprised by his decision - last Christmas at UPS was an especially grueling one, and we were both pretty sure he didn't have another one left in him. Since he worked as a part time driver at Christmas for two years before going full-time, this will be the first year of our marriage that he won't be a UPS man at Christmas (except for one year when he was in USAF Reserve training in Texas and didn't make it home to Wyoming till Christmas Eve!) So I anticipate finally getting to experience a very different sort of Santa than the one I've gotten used to…

As if all that weren't enough, yesterday was BW's 55th birthday. Although we'd had more exciting plans for it, the day was rainy and windy, he had a PT appointment that was particularly painful, and I was down and out with a headache. So it was a subdued celebration (we'll make it up this weekend), that wouldn't have amounted to much of anything were it not for our neighbor Carol bringing him chocolate zucchini muffins (which she made with pumpkin instead of zucchini, because only Carol would be brave enough to make a recipe in spite of lacking the main ingredient! lol) with the frosting from this recipe, and a festive cupcake balloon!...

The eternally boyish BW!

Like I said. :-) He's almost always this happy, too - when it's not Christmas! lol

Loved the adorable silicone cupcake cups Carol used! 

Despite having feet the cupcakes couldn't outrun us and were a memory by 1pm. :-)

And in non-BW news, it's been an incredible spring for flowers! We never got a typical big spring snow that so often wrecks the tender buds, and maybe because of that the flowering trees and bushes have been the most prolific, perfumed and pretty we've ever seen! We also got lucky - we may not have had a big snow, but we did have a very destructive storm in late May that clocked wind speeds of 75mph, but it arrived just after the peak of the flowering crabapples (less than a week after I took the photos below) and just before our roses bloomed! Here's how our beautiful rosebush looks this year, with more than half its blooms still yet to open when I took this...

Here's a neighbor's amazing crabapple tree, looking dressed for a wedding...

Another neighbor's crabapple, so pretty in pink (how I wish these were scratch-n-sniff, the beautiful fragrance all up and down our streets was heady stuff!)...

And the pinkest crabapple of all, this one (of several) in front of Sheridan Physical Therapy where BW has his sessions...

There are several more blog-worthy goodies left in my stack to share, so I hope to get more blogging done this week between planting more flowers, mowing more lawn, running more errands, and several more appointments! I will definitely post at least a SkyWatch Friday post if nothing else… so stay tuned, and have a great weekend!

SkyWatch Friday: May Showers (& Flowers)

"As above, so below" - it's been a hectic, busy week at ground level as well as overhead! Since this is a SkyWatch post, I'll stick mostly with the "as above" part, so here we go...

Our late afternoon skies on Cinco de Mayo were filled with nubes ominosas, but hey, there's always that silver lining…

By the next day it was the forecast that was ominous, calling for rain, snow, wind, and much colder temps through late yesterday. Once we'd gotten all our yard work done and walked the dogs while it was still pleasant, I grabbed my camera and went on a little walkabout to capture the transition in progress overhead:

This was our fairish, blueish, puffy-cloud filled happy sky to the east, on its way out...

While from the same spot, a mere 90º pivot to the west revealed the grouchy, storm-filled sky that was on its way in… 

A short walk along that path leads to the driveway of this property. It's not every day you see a Jolly Roger flying from a Wyoming flagpole! Avast mateys, time to reef the mainsail!...

(The smoke that the keen-eyed among you may have spied in the distance below the Jolly Roger is from the springtime burning of fields. I worry about the wee critters who live in them, and hate the acrid smell!)

No surprise, seeing those threatening skies, that they did indeed open up and pelt us with windblown hard rains that night, and sloppy rain/snow mixes from then until yesterday afternoon. For a while on Wednesday it snowed so hard we couldn't see across the street. (Didn't stick, though, thank goodness!) Anyway, in some news from ground level, the hardy spring flowers in our neighbors' yard didn't seem to mind that the drinks served this week were mostly Slushies...

They put on a happy, colorful Spring parade in spite of the dreary weather!

No Lack of Lilacs or Shortfall of Rainfall

We had a wild mix of weather during our long holiday weekend, starting out with a sunny Saturday near 80º that was perfect for all our outdoor chores and projects, but also a nice long walk with our three dogs (and my little neglected Kodak). The lilacs have been a riot of color and fragrance lately, and I was hoping to photograph some of them. Got lucky just a few blocks into our walk with this long and tall blooming hedge of them...

I added a discreet arrow to point out the white cluster of blossoms among the purple!

My attempt to get a better photo of the white blossoms wasn't very successful because of the mix of bright sun and shadow...

I ventured into the hedge for its fragrance and shade and most important, this artsy SkyWatchy photo :-) ... 

So pretty! If only there were a Scratch-n-Sniff app to go with it...

We decided to walk to the Trail End State Historic Site (or as it's often known locally, "Kendrick Mansion"), which first took us past a neighboring house that belongs to a couple we've been acquainted with for years. I've always loved their chimney, which looks to me like it could double as a bread or pizza oven quite nicely (if one didn't mind hauling the dough up a ladder to their rooftop to bake it!), so I finally nabbed a photo of it...

And here's a photo of the pretty sunroom addition that holds up the fun chimney, in case anyone's curious (the huge, original 2-story part of the house is to the right out of the frame, but I would easily be content to just live in this part!)

And then we spent some lovely, languid time strolling the grounds around Kendrick Mansion, where more lilacs seemed to be blooming everywhere I pointed the camera...

(You can see and learn more of the house and grounds on its official web site and this post)

The Carriage House, which now hosts local theater group performances

Can you see my tiny note below the purple lilac and to the left of the red and gold sign? 

Or more importantly, can you see who it's pointing at? :-)

After strolling the grounds and sniffing most of the flowers, checking the time on the formal garden's sundial, peeking to see if the rose garden behind the carriage house was blooming yet (not even close), and enjoying the beautiful mountain views from the lovely lawns, we'd exhausted all of Kendrick Mansion's possibilities for the day. So we walked home via one of my favorite little neighborhoods on a looping lane that's tucked away and always peaceful. I walk the dogs there fairly often, and there is seldom anyone around. But on this day there was one resident out enjoying the beautiful day (and a fresh salad lunch al fresco) in the side yard...

Should we tell him about the ladies having their own picnic back at Kendrick Mansion? :-)

By the time we got home, it had gotten humid and was clouding up, and it wasn't long after that the thunderstorms started rolling in and were persistent visitors throughout the rest of the weekend. Saturday's only brought very gusty winds (again!), but Sunday afternoon several severe thunderstorms rolled through, bringing pea sized hail and over a half inch of rain along with all the dramatic thunder and lightning. I took all of these photos on Sunday as the storms built and raged around and over us...

Thunderstorms building in the east

A big ol' bad boy to the northwest

This creepy cloud showed up behind our house between storm lashings

The sky was constantly filling up with dramatic photo ops during and between storms, 
but after photographing this last menacing cloud I hightailed it inside!

The real drama, however, was on Memorial Day. The storms had continued during Sunday night and Monday morning, dumping another ¾" of rain on us by the time the sun returned around 10am. But by noon, the skies to the north and west were starting to look ominous again so we decided to take the dogs for a quick walk around a nearby neighborhood. We were at the furthest point from home when we looked up to see that the sky above us had stealthily but rapidly turned dark as night - and then the thunder and lightning started, the wind went from zero to ohholycrap in .01 seconds, and we started hustling the dogs back home. We hadn't gotten far, though, when something hard hit me in the head - dime sized hail. We took the closest cover available, which was under a little copse of trees in someone's side yard, and when it appeared the hail had ended several minutes later we headed for home again. But almost immediately it started to hail again, nickel-sized this time and a lot more of it. So we took refuge on a covered front porch of a vacant house - a porch with a metal roof! The hail came down thick and hard (and LOUD) and seemed to go on forever, bouncing off the ground and hitting us with glancing blows. As it started to let up and we could hear each other enough to converse again, I said to BW, "I'm glad I didn't bring my camera with me!" And then I looked at the photo-op of ankle deep hail on the ground and covering the street, and thought - damn, wish I had my camera with me! 

Some people are just never satisfied. :-)

Also sharing this post with 

Nothing crabby about these apple blossoms!

To say it's been a devastating week for many residents of Tornado Alley, especially in Oklahoma, would be an understatement. To say that our thoughts, support and solace are with the affected people and animals as they grieve and recover is an understatement too. 

After every storm the sun will smile.

~William R. Alger

The sun has come out, and the air is vivid with spring light...

~Byron Caldwell Smith

And to say that here in northern Wyoming the trees have awakened at last would also be an understatement, though a much happier one and for that we are grateful. Seemingly overnight, the lilacs and apple, plum and crabapple trees have burst out in colorful, fragrant blossoms. Walking the dogs down any street in town is heady stuff! Juggling three dogs (and their, uh, used hygiene paraphernalia) by myself is enough of a handful without lugging the Rebel along, but after passing this crabapple tree a block or so from our house last evening I just had to return with my camera. I'm glad I did, since most of last night and this morning we've experienced 40mph winds with gusts in excess of 55mph, so though I haven't yet been able to check, I'm sure a lot of these blossoms now litter the ground...

Can you see the heart in this last one?...

For hurting hearts any and everywhere...

Your heart has been sore wounded too. 

Dear Light, love shall cherish you, till you look again on life with happy eyes.

~Byron Caldwell Smith

May Day, May Day!

As I ignore the fact we awoke to fresh snow on the ground today and thank our lucky stars it's less than an inch because we're comfortably north of where the real snow action is, I send you wishes for a happy May Day! :-)

You know that little ditty "April showers bring May flowers?" Well, after the Greek god Zeus made a mess with his serious April glowers, it's time to bring in a goddess to put things right ~ the Roman goddess Flora (goddess of --- wait for it --- flowers!), who was traditionally honored on this day by the (another surprise) ancient Romans. And so today, Flora and I are teaming up to bring you some beautiful blooms...

Though not what we think of as a typical "May flower," I think some varieties of Echeveria flowers are absolutely stunning. Echeveria is a large genus of succulents (you probably know some of the varieties by their popular name "Hen and Chicks") native to Mexico and South American, and named for the 18th century Spanish botanist Atanasio Echeverria Codoy.

When I found this photo of lovely Echeveria flowers that accompanied this article on how to grow Echeveria in containers, I pinned it to my Earth Laughs in Flowers Pinterest board. Since it's by far the most popular thing I've ever pinned, repinned 199 times and liked 74 times so far, I thought it worth sharing here, too...

Photo by Kerry Michaels

I obviously agree with all the repinners that this photo is a beauty, but I actually prefer this other Echeveria photo that I'd found a week earlier (and came awfully close to linking to as one of the examples on my Paschal Pastels post!)...

Exotic Blue Echeveria, photo by Alessandro Pessina

Enjoy this "sweet and merry" month of May, everyone! (Even those of you getting snowed on - we'll all be bloomin' merry eventually!) :-)

SkyWatch Friday: We got Zeused!

Winter storm Zeus, which thundered into town Sunday night and turned Monday's Earth Day into a Snow Day, was fittingly named by The Weather Channel. It's rare to find an image of a smiling, happy Zeus. Not famous for a sunny disposition, on his best days he was a gatherer of clouds and a world-class sulker...

Ruler of the Olympian gods of ancient Greece, and of the sky and the angry weather that suited his personality, Zeus was often battling or punishing someone. He overthrew and banished his father Cronos (though Cronos had it coming), is often credited with orchestrating the entire Trojan War, and is most notorious for his sadistic punishment of Prometheus. His weapon of choice was the thunderbolt, which he wielded with alarming frequency at the many who vexed him, though the image on the right suggests that he sometimes liked to add variety to his days by poking his enemies with a sharp cloud-stick instead...

Even innocent spring daffodils aren't spared...

poor doomed daffodils

...since it was Zeus who promised his daughter Persephone to his brother Hades, god of the Underworld, without her mother Demeter's knowledge nor permission. Bad move. Because when Demeter - goddess of growing things -  found out, she refused to let anything sprout, bloom, or grow. And so the earth went dormant and we mortals faced famine. 

I took the above photo of a neighbor's pretty daffodil patch just as Zeus began scowling down at us in the form of some ominous clouds ("gatherer of clouds" indeed!), and we knew his eponymous storm was looming and dooming the early buds and flowers to another wintery fate...

And when the scowling clouds turned truly angry...

...we knew this probably wouldn't end well for us and our daffodil friends...

The National Weather Service, meanwhile, figured the same thing, and turned our Winter Storm Watch into a Winter Storm Warning, with a predicted snowfall of 8-12". We got lucky, because although it snowed for 24 hours beginning late Sunday morning, the ground was still warm enough to prevent it from sticking until dark, keeping the accumulation to about 8" by the next morning and altering our landscape in Demeter-like dramatic fashion...

The snow wasn't the worst of it (except from a snow-shoveler's perspective); it was the bitterly cold temperatures left in Zeus' wake, temps cold enough to prompt an extremely rare mention in the national weather news: 

In the wake of the storm, temperatures plummeted. Sheridan, Wyo., recorded a low of 2 degrees below zero on the morning of April 23. Not only did this shatter the previous record of 15 above for the date, but it was the latest subzero reading ever recorded there -- by a margin of 18 days! The previous latest measured subzero low there was April 5 in 1936.

Lovely spring weather returned soon after and quickly melted most of the snow, so I revisited the daffodil patch Wednesday for an "after" picture but the gruesome results of Zeus' hissy-fit were just too depressing to photograph. So let's just remember the daffodils as they were last Sunday morning, cheerful and lovely and perilously optimistic, and hope that Zeus concludes this spring's parade of winter storms like it concluded the Weather Channel's alphabetical winter storm names list...

Daffy, we hardly knew ye...