Spring adventures

 It has been a busy spring around here. There has been tennis, of course, and I ran the Little Rock half marathon for the third year in a row (it was cold and wet and not my best day, but I finished).

In March I completed the requirements to become a Notary Public. At the library, we get a lot of people seeking a notary, and we only had one other librarian certified, and he is often off on other business, so I figured it would be a good idea to get certified myself. So far, it has been a good investment - I've notarized something every day I have been at the office since I got my stamp.

Malcolm and his award certificates

Malcolm has been enjoying kindergarten and is learning so much. Every day I am impressed by how much he has grown in the last year. He is beginning to read (which means we can no longer spell in front of him to hide what we are saying!) and add and subtract. But the most exciting thing has been watching him on his new bike. At the beginning of spring break we bought new bikes for him and for me, to replace his outgrown balance bike and my old, heavy mountain bike. Hands down the best purchase we have made in a long while. Thanks to all his experience on the balance bike, Malcolm didn't need training wheels and was riding without any assistance after just a few minutes. It took a few more practice rides to get the hang of starting by himself, but now he is riding like a pro.

Family bike ride!

 It has been wonderful to have a new outdoor activity to do together. And again, I am so impressed with Malcolm. He has had a couple of crashes, but always gets back on the bike and keeps going. And he has stamina! For my birthday, he and I went on a bike ride together on the River Trail, and ended up going SEVEN miles in an hour. It was cold and windy that day, and I hadn't planned to go that far, but every time I suggested heading back to the car, he wanted to keep going. So we did. He was tired by the end, but he never complained or gave up. It was a great birthday gift.

Birthday bike ride!

Grandma Candi came to visit over spring break, and one day we took a family trip down to Garvan Gardens to see the tulips. So many tulips! Unlike the tulip fields in Washington or the Netherlands, the tulips at the gardens are planted among the trees, so you don't get huge stretches of colors, but you do get some lovely groupings and an idyllic stroll through a blooming forest.

It was a lovely day and the flowers were at their peak. We spent several hours just wandering, taking pictures and admiring the flowers.

Malcolm is skeptical about the paparazzi

Weather-wise, this has been an odd spring, with freezing temperatures followed by an 80 degree day, followed by rain and more rain. On repeat. But it is finally feeling like real spring (and the pollen is coating everything in yellow), and it is lovely.

Blackberry blossom

Spring flashback

Summer seems to have arrived in Arkansas to stay. April and May were cooler than normal, so we have had a bit of a reprieve, but temperatures are forecasted to be in the 90s all week. So it is a nice little break to go back and look at this pictures from our trip to Bellevue and Idaho last month, when it was cool and refreshing. Enjoy.

 Benewah Creek, just outside Benjamin's mother's house.

A door to nowhere, Lake Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. Without a boat there, I can't tell if it is supposed to keep people from the lake off the dock, or people from the dock out of the lake!

Apple blossoms.

Lavender in my mother's garden, with one of her bees.

Poppy with bee (look closely, she's in there).

Chives, and bees.

Early morning raindrops.

Roses, in a delicate state of decay.

Spiky and purple and geometric.

One more rose, because I can't help myself. I love photographing them.

April Flowers

Spring is, finally, in full bloom around here. The daffodils finished up a couple of weeks ago, but everything else is taking its time. The jessamine is fully covered in fragrant yellow blooms, and bees.

There are three iris in the front garden, doing their best to add some color. I am still waiting for the other iris planted in the same bed to show some spirit. Maybe next year.

My favorite, the lilac. I checked my blog for the last couple of years in an informal bloom date survey - they are at least two weeks behind last year. The vegetable garden is also getting a slower start this year. I read somewhere that last year the temperatures for March were around 10 degrees above normal, while this year they were 10 degrees below normal. Seems about right. We've had an awful lot of cold, wet weather this year - I thought I was just noticing it more since I am at home all the time, but it was actually colder.

We've had some lovely sunrises lately. And since the trees are still mostly bare, we get a great view from our deck.

Spring at the Bellevue Botanical Garden

In my (pitiful) attempts to keep this from becoming an all-Malcolm blog, I am going to share some of the nature pictures I took on our trip to Bellevue at the beginning of March. Since it is almost Easter, I thought I would lead off with this lovely hellebore, otherwise known as a lenten rose (since they typically bloom during the Lenten season). This one was in a pot at a garden center, but my mother does have some in her yard. I love the delicate pink petals and the subtle green center on this one. 

I've mentioned before how much I love the Bellevue Botanical Garden - every season has something to offer. This time it was a bank of mini-irises and a new feature - the Ravine Experience.

They have built an amazing suspension bridge over a small ravine at the edge of the garden, so you can walk in the canopy. It isn't really that much in the canopy, since the trees in the ravine are huge, but you do get to look down into the ravine. And the bridge is pretty cool.

See - the trees are all around the bridge, but Western Red Cedars are pretty darn tall, and it would take a deeper ravine than this one to pull you into their canopies.

I imagine it will be a lovely, cool and refreshing spot to visit come summer.

In the more formal section of the garden is this happy little stream. I probably should have played around with my camera settings and tried to capture the water in motion better, but at least I stopped to look at all, I guess.

And I will admit that I was less than attentive to what this flower was, but I love the tightly bunched circle and the tiny individual flowers. The yellow really stood out against the browns and greys of the leafless branches.

You have to love the various textures on this branch. The flowers, the almost fluffy moss, and the harder, crinkly lichen.

I haven't had many opportunities to take pictures of anything other than Malcolm lately, but now that it is spring again, I hope to make time. Not that I have a problem taking lots of pictures of him, but I miss looking more closely at things.

Flowers at Crystal Bridges

The first thing I noticed when we got out of the car at the Crystal Bridges Museum were all the flowers. The museum itself is in a sort of gorge or valley - you park above it and walk down to it. All along the parking lot and the hillside around the building were lovely flower gardens.

I was very impressed at how vibrant and non-droopy everything was, considering how parched my own garden is by this time of year. The gardeners (and sprinkler system) there must be top-notch.

I can't remember what this purple flower is, and it was sort of hard to capture on camera because it was on long fluffy stalks and wouldn't sit still in the wind.

This pink flower is just a little out of place - its fellows were one bed over. 

There were quite a few butterflies and bees enjoying the flowers too.

The flowers were a lovely introduction to the museum and preparation for the art inside.

Iris

Last year, a friend gave me some iris from her yard, and I planted them in our front flower bed. I wasn't expecting to get any flowers this year, but one of the plants surprised me with this beauty. I love the stripes and the creamy yellow interior.

My parents have come and gone, and the baby's room is now painted. The crib is assembled too, but that's as far as we got. This weekend, Benjamin and I hope to do some furniture shopping - for a bookcase for that room and a dresser for ours (so we can then put our old grad school dresser in the baby's room), at which point the room will start to look inhabitable. And I do have some decorative things to put up on the walls...eventually. What I am saying is, I don't have any pictures of the room yet. Soon.

Flowers for Good Friday

Ajuga

 I promised flower pictures from my garden, and here they are. Spring is in full flower right now, and it is lovely. We had some too warm weather last week, but this week has been perfect, so hopefully the flowers will all last a while.

Clematis

This clematis is pretty darn hardy. That first spring we were in the house, I chopped it down and planted a rose in its place - but it still came back. And now I am happy to have it, winding in among the climbing rose (pictures of that at the end).

Mexican Lime tree flowers

This is so exciting! See that little green nub in that one flower? That is a baby lime! Last year, this tree only bloomed in the middle of the winter, when it was taking shelter from the cold in our living room. There are no pollinating insects in our living room.  This year, it did bloom in January, but it kept blooming when we moved it back outside, and it has kept going for a couple of months. There are a lot of tiny limelets, so we are very hopeful of getting a good crop.

One of our azaleas, with added oak tree seed decoration. I don't remember the azaleas doing this well last year, and after the horrible heat and dry of last summer, I wasn't sure they would be in good shape. I was wrong.

This one was so bright that all the pictures I took of it look completely over-exposed, even though they are not. It is just that fluorescent. 

And here is the climbing rose. Last spring, the climbing canes never really filled in, and while we had some roses, there weren't really that many. This year, the bush is much fuller, and there are lots of blossoms. Plus, they smell really nice.

Since I took these pictures last week, the other three rose bushes have started blooming, and the peas in the garden have gotten a few flowers. Next time, I'll give you a few pictures of the edible parts of the garden.

Hiking at Pigeon Roost, now with pictures

After all the complaining about the problems with our hiking trip this past weekend, it is only fair that I show you the good stuff. The weather was pretty good - a little warmer and more humid than is ideal (for me anyway), but not truly unpleasant. Most of the trees have not yet regained their leaves, so we had good views of the hills, and eventually the lake.

The wildflowers were delightful - violets, and little white flowers that sort of looked like a type of allium (picture of those didn't come out), and these little rock rose-types.

I'm still experimenting with the various settings on my DSLR, and trying to take pictures while holding a dog leash is not idea (yes, I did have Benjamin hold it some of the time, but not always), so the pictures didn't come out as well as I had hoped. I ended up having to adjust the balance and colors on the computer, which I would prefer not to do - I want my picture to be untouched-up. Not that it is a crime to "fix" a picture - the primary reason Ansel Adams' pictures are so very good is his darkroom technique - but I don't really like doing it because of operator error. Oh well, gives me a good reason to go hiking again next spring.

Here are a couple of pictures for those of you who want to have pictures of my pregnant belly. Since I refuse to post posed belly pictures until I am truly "great with child" (and am even more adamant about never referring to it as a bump) they are all you are going to get for a while. Not a whole lot to see yet.

Hmm. This one is sort of awkward - where is my other leg? And pictures of people eating, not generally graceful. Oh well. You can see our cooking set-up on the grill of the brand-new fire pit (and a very nice fire pit it was), and the too-short tent pad in the background.

Miikka in a quiet, and relatively undirty moment. Because the boy scouts had taken out the old, rusted fire pits (we saw them farther down the trail, waiting to be taken out by boat), they had also scattered all the old ashes around the area. Miikka had a good time hunting for food scraps and lolling in the ashes; since we also slept with him, the tent got rather gritty as well. The first thing I did when we got home was give him a bath.

And our morning view of our corner of a very large, winding lake. If the trees had been in full leaf, we would hardly have been able to see any glimmer of water. I didn't take any pictures on the hike out, since I packed the camera in my backpack. The wildflowers were still very pretty though.