Finally!

 

Last evening we got some snow!!! I have a friend whose birthday is the 18th and quite often the snow comes on that day, so we are ten days later. It has been a warm autumn and some bushes still have their leaves. The sun came out and melted most of it away, but I am just happy to see it. I am a cold weather girl.

Today's picture - Mayflowers

How do these mayflowers know it is the first of May??

Today's picture - Lucy in the sunshine

 

Today's pictures - sunshine

After about nine days of dark, cloudy weather we have sun today. The blog header picture was taken yesterday, and here is the same view today.

 And if you look closely, you may be able to see the smoke coming out of the chimney, against the blue, blue sky.

Today's picture - breakfast

 

Because Tom and I get up at different times, I eat my breakfast alone. It is a little oasis for me. I am not much a creature of routine, but this meal is the same every day: my toasted homemade bread, plain yogurt with fruit (blueberries and cherry plums today), coffee, orange juice, and water. And my book. I got a terrific new book holder, and I happily read quietly for that time. The rest of the day is filled with something different each day, but this remains the same and I love it.

Today's picture and Quote du jour - Moonlight

 Last evening as I went up to bed, the (full) moonlight was streaming in the windows, and I thought about Emily's line in the Thornton Wilder play, Our Town. I don't seem to have a copy in the house, and couldn't find the whole play online. I did find the quote, but hoped to get more context. I think she was doing her homework, and maybe talking to her boyfriend out the window. But I could be way off.

"My, isn't the moonlight terrible"

This was taken with no flash at 10:24 pm.

Today's picture/Daffs and turks

 

 

How I love the first daffodils. 

We've had some quite warm days, and more cool/cold days. Typical April.

The hen turkeys are off sitting on eggs somewhere, but there are up to six toms who are around most days.

And no picture ( I don't feel comfortable putting up pictures of other people's kids or grandkids) but I am a great-aunt for the first time! Tom's sister's son's baby. So this little girl is a second cousin to my grandchildren. 

Today's picture

 The old one and the young ones

Christmas sheep

The Christmas sheepys. You can see we have no snow! The real sheep aren't complaining because they are still doing some grazing in the pasture.

Today's picture - Old bookmarks

Do you remember the early days of Amazon when they included bookmarks in the book orders? I still have two of them. I have a couple little drawers of special bookmarks and these are among them.

Today's picture seen on Instagram

 I laughed so much when I saw this.

Today's picture - wild turkeys

 

The photo isn't anything to write home about, but it sure gives the idea of what I saw out the window the other day. I managed to count 21 turkeys, and they stayed for over an hour! This happened in the summer, too, with mothers and their babies.

I've heard that Theodore Roosevelt wanted to make the wild turkey our national bird. I am so fond of them. The wing colors are beautiful, they are pleasant company, other birds and our hens are not afraid of them. Sometimes they go right into the pasture and graze with everyone else. Just the best.

I read this online:

• Native only to North and Central America, the wild turkey was discovered by Europeans in Mexico in the early 1500s.

• By the 1930s, the wild turkey population was at less than 30,000 birds; a victim of market hunting, subsistence hunting and widespread habitat destruction.

• Over the next 50 years, state wildlife agencies funded by hunters’ dollars and working with the National Wild Turkey Federation, captured more than 200,000 wild turkeys and released them in quality wild turkey habitat.

• Today there are more than 7 million wild turkeys roaming the woodlands and river-bottoms across the country.

Today's pictures/Generations

Here is Margaret reading to Hazel this afternoon on the porch.

She is reading

This was my childhood book, given to me by my grandmother.

Today's pictures/Snow in May

First - compare to the blog header picture which was taken April 25th!

We got a lot of snow!

The animals and chickens said "no thank you" to going out today.

I fear the daffs are gone. I didn't go out, but I can't see any blossoms. The daylilies can deal with snow but the cold has hurt the tips of the leaves. From now on warm temps and sunshine please!

These flowers from two different growers sure do cheer up the house.

A Quote du jour for Christmas Eve

Backward, turn backward, O Time in thy flight;
Make me a child again just for tonight.

Elizabeth Akers Allen
1832-1911

Snow, and a song about June

You do know how much I love snow! Here are a couple pictures from today.

But if some of you living in the colder climes are longing for June, here is a beautiful song I heard on an American Songbook online radio station today. No video - just an album cover. Lucy Ann Polk is a completely new name to me, and I will go looking for more. Memphis in June was published in 1945, with music by Hoagy Carmichael and lyrics by Paul Francis Webster. Lucy Ann Polk recorded it in 1957.

Today's picture/holiday cactus

I recently read of someone calling their "Christmas" cactus plants "holiday" cactus, which I think is a great idea. Right now mine are coming into bloom, and here it is almost Hallowe'en! They often bloom in the late fall/early winter, and again at Easter time, so holiday is what I will call them from now on.

I put two very close together so they almost look like one plant. The one on the right is a cactus I gave my mother on her last Christmas, 1972. It isn't very big, but it keeps right on blooming. It is kind of a peach color, while the other is a fuchsia, with a funny story. Tom was going to buy a cactus for the house and asked what color. I said anything but fuchsia. And this is what he got! In his defense it wasn't in bloom when he bought it. Ever since then we have called it the "anything but fuchsia".

I wrote about my mother's plant way back in the second month of the blog, with no comments because hardly anyone knew I was here!

Today's picture/Fall

And 'tis autumn here at Windy Poplars Farm.

Today's picture/Dragonfly 2

We have a houseful of spiders and daddy-long-legs in the late summer, and I thought this was the latter until I took a closer look. First dragonfly we've ever seen inside. Tom brought it out and it flew away. It doesn't look much like the other one, but I'm quite sure it is a dragonfly. The second picture is blurry but I wanted a closeup.

Today's picture/Dragonfly

This morning our son-in-law Matty found this on the lawn. Seems like it just died a natural death. I've put it in a big glass jar.

Addendum: I got a comment below from someone who used to have dragonflies in the yard, but no longer. I did a little searching to see why they might be gone, and I read that dragonflies are connected with death. It seems they show up after someone has died. Well, yesterday afternoon a neighbor called and said that two of our neighbors had died. I find that very strange. Coincidental probably that this is the first dragonfly I've ever seen closeup (and dead), but still makes me shiver just a bit.