Happy Groundhog Day

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blue skies, postadya2016, weather

   
    
 
Today is Groundhog Day and  Punxsutawney Phil in Punxsutawney PA did his annual job and announced we will have an early Spring. It’s a little hard to take him seriously this year because it already feels like Spring.

I am so happy walking around my backyard in nothing but a sweater, taking pictures celebrating this glorious day, full of bright blue sky, lavender and thyme smelling fragrant despite being February 2nd.

Today’s weather is another dose of naturally wonderful medicine, helping me stay positive despite how hard the treatments are, being cumulative and everything, seeing blue skies for miles and feeling the sun’s rays on my head feels so restorative, it’s easy to walk around with a smile on my face.

Deluge in New York

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postaday2015, rain, weather

  
This is actually nothing really compared to what I was in, when I was driving from Boston down to New York, the rain was coming down in sheets, at one point it felt as if someone was throwing bucket after bucket of water at the windshield, blinding me despite having my windshield wipers on full speed.

I’m not complaining by any means, we have had just the right amount of rain, more than enough sun and not too much heat, aside from this past week which has been a scorcher, we have been lucky.

I look to my gardens and everyone is happy, the roses continue to bloom, my marigolds are getting thicker, I have cut back some other perennials and they got thicker and piut forth more buds, ready for round two of blooms. I am definitely having a great growing season.

   
 
   
 
  
Purple is doing phenomenally well this year. 

Today is a perfect day for spiffy shoes

Tags

pictures, postaday2015, warm, weather

We are here in New York and it is absolutely glorious outside, 62 degrees with blue skies and a gorgeous sun. This morning I put on my new shoes that my husband gifted to me for our last wedding anniversary with unrestrained glee. I can’t help it, my feet have been encased in my trusty Merril’s for far too long, I would never complain about my Merril’s, they keep my feet warm, dry and they keep me safe with their rugged soles, but they aren’t the prettiest of shoes. When I looked at the weather for today, my heart and my vanity leapt with anticipation at the thought of walking in New York with my newest loafers. 

   

   

When I decided to take pictures of my shoes, I didn’t want to it to be the typical shoe picture, shoes on the ground. The blue sky was way too pretty to be ignored and it was the most important part of the decision to take my lovely shoes for a stroll outside, so the sky needed to be included in the picture.

My next thought after taking the picture was how incrediably quaint all of the telephone wires and electrical poles appeared. This is a relatively new impression that I have and it is thanks to my cousin Francoise and our friends Claudine, Marc and Alain, who couldn’t help but point out that the above ground configuration of our electrical and phone services seem to be a shout out to the fifties, which is weird considering how wealthy the United States is compared to the rest of the world. I was reminded of this once more by a lovely French food stylist/WordPress blogger, Coco Jobard, while she was visiting Los Angeles a few weeks ago, she posted the most incredible pictures of gardens, architecture and local cuisine. Since so many of her pictures were outside, she couldn’t escape the wires from intruding into her pictures and she mentioned several times in her posts of her amazement at how quaint the telephone and electric poles were, her words not mine.

I was trying to figure out where to place my feet in order to take a shot without the wires and try as I might, without calling too much attention to myself, there wasn’t single shot to be had that didn’t have at least one wire; at least in front of my mother’s house. I suppose that I could have walked to the park and laid down in the middle of the meadow with my feet straight up in the air, but that seemed a little bit over and above the call of duty.

What a spectacular day!

Longer days are here, hooray!

Tags

postaday2015, rosemary, sunlight, weather

My husband and I were out and about and when we were driving back home, I glanced at the clock on the dash and it was 4:55 pm as we pulled into our driveway and the sky was still the prettiest shade of light blue with a gorgeous gradation of pink to deeper pink right on the horizon framed with the mountains in the backdrop; it was such a shot in the arm to see that daylight was lasting longer.

The pictures that I took of my rosemary plant that is residing in my bedroom were from the moment that we returned home at 5:00 pm and you can see the daylight right outside my window. You can also see that my rosemary plant has grown since the summer when I brought it in to winter it until next spring.

If you look at both pictures, you can tell that despite the cold weather, we do keep it on the cool side in the house, my rosemary plant has grown and it seems happy where it is this year, as opposed to the other years where I kept it in the dining room. The hibiscus plants and the bougainvillea don’t mind being wintered in the dining room, but for reasons that I don’t understand, the rosemary never liked it there. My bedroom apparently is where it feels the love. I am more than happy to accommodate it and my bedroom smells quite nice as a result so everyone is happy.

My garden springing to life

Tags

blooms, gardens, postaday2014, weather

Can you believe the size of the bamboo already? I was gone just three days and today would make day four since I last really looked at them and they grew at least a foot in height. I was telling my mother as we were working in her garden over the weekend; it would be nice if the plants that we bought at nurseries had root systems as hardy as the ones that we spend all of our time weeding out. She laughed at that. We were weeding her Lily of the Valley as we were talking about it; they had gotten a little out of hand and when I showed her how their root system operates; she wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes. They most certainly go forth and multiply.

My weeping tree, I forget what kind of weeper it is; it has been so long since my best friend and I brought it home in my Subaru, I love it so much. I know that I post a picture every year of the same weeping tree with the same purple Azalea, but for me, it never gets old. The flowers are so pretty and I still get amazed by the fact that I haven’t killed them that I get so happy each year that they grace me with their blossoms.

The forsythia is one that I inherited from the house’s previous owners, but I love it just the same even if I didn’t plant it. I like the simplicity of its yellow blossoms against the starkness of its narrow and gracefully curving branches.

Today is such a gorgeous day in Blandford, the only beautiful day of the week; as of tomorrow we are going to be beset with rain, rain and more rain. We probably need it, I think, I am not too sure. Lately it seems that the regions that need the rain aren’t getting any and the regions that have had too much already are just getting more. This spring and summer appears to be forecast for some difficult times for many parts of the country. I am keeping my fingers crossed for everyone, that the weather doesn’t get too severe and people don’t suffer any disasters or at least not too many.

Excuse me Mother Nature, do you have a minute?

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Mother Nature, postaday2014, weather

I am so very tired of the biting cold, the snow storms and feeling winter weary. I had been optimistic for the month of March, thinking that somehow getting beyond February would bring a sun-filled light at the end of the tunnel. But No. This entire week will be cold, no matter how far south we have come, down to Virginia. It is 16 degrees right now and it will not warm up until later in the week, only to get cold once again.

This is my reality for some more weeks, many more weeks apparently, so Mother Nature I have a bone to pick with you. Will you please call back your frosty fingers that grip my region with a tight, cold, clenched fist and let us have a little warmth, 40ish would be fine with me. I am not asking for the weather that my baby girl is enjoying, check out this picture sent from Key West

I am not asking for that, all I am asking for is an entire week of 40ish weather, followed by maybe 45 and then gradually, as gradually as you wish, increase the thermostat, a few degrees every few weeks until we get to 85 and then you can sit back and relax, not too much to ask for, is it?

Here comes the sun, finally!

Tags

postaday2014, snow, temperatures, warm, weather

Happy days for me, an entire day with sunlight and warm temperatures. It is a toasty 40 degrees here in Boston and the sun is shining, it’s as if the snowstorm that we drove in yesterday had never happened. There are drips falling everywhere in Boston, melting snow hooray! Maybe there is an end in sight to this snow happy winter. So far the temperature forecast for the next week is in the mid 40’s, a long overdue break from the freezing mode that we have been stuck in, I have a big smile on my face with that piece of welcome news. Jack is happy too, the poor baby really doesn’t like to be cold.

I’m sure that the baby boy is happy that the snow is melting back home and I know that down in Miami, the baby girl is most likely wearing shorts today. The warm light is just at the end of the tunnel of winter, we are almost there just a few more weeks to go. 🙂

The Polar Vortex

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postaday2014, weather

Not only the Northeast but also a large swath of the Midwest and further down South, we are experiencing bone chilling temperatures. I had to write about it because the name Polar Vortex is a new one for me. I am sure that climatologists are familiar with the term and probably use it to describe temperature shifts at the poles, but I have never heard it applied to the continental United States. As I have been reading about this new term for us amateur weather people, inhabitants of planet Earth, I learned that this Polar Vortex has taken a drunken tour down to visit the United States, instead of staying up North where it lives. I can understand wanting to visit other places, but I am pretty sure that ten minutes into the Polar Vortex drunken visit down South, we felt that it had overstayed its visit.

I know that I write often enough that time rushes by too quickly, but trust me when I write this, I cannot wait for Thursday when the temperatures come back to a balmier 35-40 degrees. This is not pleasant by any stretch of the imagination. So if you are in the throes of the Polar Vortex, stay warm and just remember that the drunken climate shift will be over soon.

The weather outside is frightful

Tags

pictures, postaday2013, snow, weather

Okay, it isn’t exactly frightful but it is coming down at a fairly steady pace and doesn’t show signs of letting up. I think that we may see about 3 or 4 inches, just enough to make traffic later on a huge mess.

I’m just posting to show a picture that I took and tried to enhance. I’m still experimenting with the filters, the enhancement feature and the cropping mechanism on my iPhone. It does make taking pictures even more interesting, just manipulating the different looks a picture could have is fun

I don’t know which look I prefer, the tonal look is so eery, perfect for the thick grey overhang of the wintry air up above. The normal look does show brand new snowflakes, those are always so pretty and pristine, just dropped from the sky. I like both, they just evoke different emotional responses, is what I think and I can’t pick which one is better.

Daily prompt : Midseason bloggers

Tags

autumn, foliage, mideason, postaday2013, weather

For many of us the seasons are changing, bouncing unpredictably between cold and warm. Are you glad to be moving into a new season, or wishing for one more week of the old?

I am enjoying our resurgence of the warm weather. Having experienced a small chilly snap last week, I decided that I wasn’t quite ready for permanent cold weather. I need more time to mentally and physically acclimate to temperatures that are below 55 degrees . I am not ready to let go of 65 degrees yet, though having the fall foliage displayed in all of its magnificence on a daily basis is incredible and a gift.

I wonder what it would be like to live in a change free environment. I think of it as a warm place, I never wonder what it would be like to live permanently cold because I already know that I would move away, I wouldn’t stay for long. In the case of permanent warm weather, I don’t know if I would miss the changing seasons, at least for the short term.

Island living with palm trees, blue skies and tranquil waters with balmy temperatures in the low 80’s would be quite lovely, at Christmastime I would decorate the palm trees somehow to add some yuletide cheer. Christmas spirit is much more than the surrounding environment, no snow shouldn’t mean no Christmas feeling. Sunshine practically everyday, I wonder if that would ever get old?

For now I will be taking in as much nice weather as possible and hopefully it will last for another few weeks. 🙂