Tag Archives: spring

Spring Observations

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When I lived in Seattle, I didn’t fully appreciate the arrival of spring.  Seattle is kept moderately temperate year-round by the proximity of Puget Sound and, by proxy, the Pacific Ocean.  You can pretty much go for a run out of doors all year long, if you don’t mind a little rain.

But since leaving Seattle to return to Eastern Washington, I have a new appreciation for spring.  The numerous evergreen trees in Seattle keep things from turning entirely gray and brown.  So you miss the slowly dawning, creeping emergence of green all around you.  It’s such a pleasure that I’ve come to consider driving around here this time of year as hazardous, because you’re so distracted by the sun-dappled leaves out the window.  I went out of my way to drive by one of my favorite local parks last week with cold groceries in the backseat:

tree-lined street

sun-dappled leaves

And with the slow creeping green came warmer weather in a rush — literally.  All of our considerable accumulation of mountain snow is melting in one go, and the Falls are at record levels.  Check out these photos!

Monroe Street Bridge and Falls

Lower Falls, May 2009

Monroe Street Bridge and Falls - 2011

Lower Falls, May 2011

Happy Spring-almost-Summer, everyone!

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A story from the weekend

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This weekend, we had a taste of good weather.  The sky was perfectly blue with barely a cloud in sight.  It was warm.  As I am once again sleeping in sweaters, and wrapped in a fleece blanket on the couch, writing this, that was a welcome change.

I was at my parents’, and their flowering pear tree is blooming.

It sits right outside my old bedroom window, and on Saturday I went out to take a closer look at the flowers, only to discover that the tree was positively swarming in bees.

I’m petrified of bees.  My sister got married outside last summer, and my parents practically invested in citronella candles and wasp traps for fear that I, the maid of honor, would embarrass everyone at the altar-slash-paper dove garland strung between two trees.  In the end, it was too cold and windy for bugs to really be a problem.  (Sorry, Mom and Dad!)

There were so many bees on the pear tree that you could hear them buzzing.  Did I mention that this tree is right outside my old bedroom window?  Let’s hope there aren’t any holes in that window screen.  For everyone’s sake.

Later in the afternoon I saw this lone, little cloud in the otherwise perfectly blue sky.  I went out to snag a photo, because I love little clouds drifting slowly and alone in the blue sky.

That little non-cloud object obscuring the beautiful blue?  A bee.