Thursday, April 28, 2011

I've had 4000 pageviews



Thought I would share this- 4000 pageviews.  It was kinda exciting to me.  I thought no one would care what I had to say.  I never thought I would get so many by this time.  

Pageviews today
5
Pageviews yesterday
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1,037
Pageviews all time history
4,000
Don't track your own pageviews









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Saturday, April 23, 2011

I Hope the Easter Rabbit hops to you too

Happy Easter
The other day this little fellow hopped into my view.  He reminded me of the Easter Bunny.  I hope you have an Easter bunny hopping into you life too, bringing you all sorts of good things.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Magnolia trees are blooming along with a lot of other things


I'VE BEEN MUSING ABOUT ALL THE THINGS THAT ARE IN BLOOM NOW (It's no wonder every ones allergies are acting up).

 This week I noticed the Magnolia trees are starting to bloom.  I'm shocked that they are already blooming.  Normally they don't start to bloom until the middle of May.
     
Magnolia Tree bud
Magnolia tree that has not cut back, and growing to the ground
   The reason I am aware of this was because when my son was about 2 he saw a Magnolia tree about to bloom and got all excited because he thought Christmas was about to come since to him the tree he was looking at looked like a Christmas tree with its white buds on it and the way it is cone shaped. He thought the buds were christmas lights.  He was very disappointed that it was not coming.  To cheer him up I told him that the Magnolia Tree was blooming for his birthday which was about ten days later.  Every year since then I look forward to the trees blooming right before his birthday. 
 

1 st one I saw, sorry its not in focus.
Opened Magnolia blossom

Another bush that is blooming, that I usually think of as a late spring to early summer plant, is the Oleanders.

Oleander bush just starting to bloom


Oleander bush, closer
Oleander flowers

Pink Oleander one week later

This has been such a crazy spring.  Usually the crocuses are the first to bloom yet I'm seeing some still blooming now.
crocuses
 
At least the Tulips, Snapdragons and Iris's are blooming like I expected them to.  

Tulips
Tulips
Snapdragons

Snapdragons and other spring flowers

Iris

Iris

Iris

 Other plants bloom that I don't know what they are but seem normal for this time of year.

??

I don't know what this is but it is a pretty vine of some sort

 Its a bit early for the Lily's but not too early.

  Lily
Lily

But now the Amaryllis's are blooming also which is way too early.  I usually don't see these until the summer time.

Red Amaryllis
   
Amaryllis



   Also the Roses are very early this year.  The first bloom celebration at the Gardens of the American Rose Center is normally scheduled for the first weekend in May.  This is the ideal time to see roses in the area because normally the roses are just starting to come out and are spectacular.  But this year they are already in full bloom and have been for a week or so.  By May they will be past there peak viewing time.
Rose bush in full bloom

Roses already in bloom

Roses in bloom



And here's a favorite of mine the Shreveport Rose, which is orange in color.

The Shreveport Rose
  Did you know that Shreveport is the home for the American Rose Society? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gardens_of_the_American_Rose_Center ?





This has been a crazy spring.  I worry because we've gotten so little rain.  It's all going north of us.  Also its been an unusually windy spring.  In the past when we've gotten little rain it leads to a very hot summer.  I hope it's not going to be a very hot summer this year.

PS a lot of people like this post and if you like this you might also like this post on Japanese Magnolia blooming.

A Bird warning me to stay away

 I  like to park at the far end of parking lots so that I can walk and stretch my legs before having to sit in a meeting. On 4-21, I came out of the meeting to the car and as I was getting into the car this bird flew down to the ground from the tree that was close by and started to tweet at me.  I got my camera out and took its picture.  Then it really gave me a show, telling me to get away.  I could tell I was close to its nest.  I thought it was so pretty. it needed to be shared.

 
Bird warning me her nest is near by

  Now if I could only figure out what type of bird it is.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Spring Break

I'm back from my Spring Break, and Oh what a time I had.

I'll be writing about it more soon but just to give you a hint of what I did:

  I learned the Balloonist toast -
'The winds have welcomed you with softness.
The sun has blessed you with his warm hands.
You have flown so well and so high, 
that God has joined you in your laughter and
set you gently back again into the loving 
arms of mother earth."

I also got to see the 'Carefree Highway' being extended and built. Can you guess which state I was in?
I also got to hear about this song by Gordon Lightfoot.

Now all I have to do is filter down my pictures to a reasonable number.  I took over a 1,000 pictures with most of them being geologic in nature.  And it is so hard deciding which ones to keep and which ones to delete.  I'm just glad I have a digital camera now and not taking slides like I used to.