Note: I do hope that everyone who read the comments for the last bit understood very clearly that while Teri is WAY smarter than I am, and I won the debate, it was all in fun – and no animals were injured.
The day before Easter, we woke up to this:
At Christmas, this is magical. In spring, not so much. I have not brightened these shots any because there was nothing bright about any of this. Hope wakes up on a spring day like this and pulls the covers back over its head. The only bit that slips out from under there is the part that says: “It’ll all be gone by this afternoon.” But the part still under the quilt says, “Yeah. Then everything will turn to mud.” And both are right. Especially when you have puppies.
See the airplane wing? INCHES, I tell you.
Puppies: “Ummm – haven’t we seen this stuff before?” The pine tree is, I will admit, pretty when its flocked like this.
But the next day, Easter and conference (does it get better than this?), we woke up and prepared our traditional breakfast. We call it “eggs vermasella” because that’s what my mother called it, because that’s what her mother called it. As a young wife, I was poking around my Betty Crocker cookbook (a wedding present) and found a full page spread of this dish. And that’s when I found out it was really “Eggs vers Marseilles.” I guess I inherited the ancient Alabama version. I’m the one who turned it into a once a year Easter tradition. And it’s usually made with shelled eggs that retain some of the bleed through color. I added cheese and bacon to the mix.
I bought new dishes. Because I have SO much room in my house for new things. And I hardly have ANY dishes. These, I saw at Pier 1, and they made me happy, kind of south of the border Provence. We will use them all spring and summer. Happy, happy.
Does this man look happy? (He is, really. There was a cheerier shot,but he had his eyes closed.)
Man, after being in charge of bacon frying and egg shelling.
Girl in lion hat.
After getting here too late to help with anything. Wait, did she set the table? Did you set the table? You usually set the table. But this time? Bum.
Other children with their child. His sippy cup goes nicely with the plates, don’tcha think?
Two of our spring traditions:
1) The mourning cloak. A medium sized brown butterfly, outside edge of wings bordered with cream. Every spring, at the end of March-beginning of April, the Mourning Cloak shows up in our yard like the swallows, showing up in Capistrano. It flutters around in crazy spirals, lights briefly, takes off again, over and over, dancing. When we see it, we all run out into the backyard, pick a place, stand stock still with our arms out – and wait. Inevitably, the MC will end up landing on at least one of us. I have pictures year after year – the MC on Cam’s head, on Chaz’ open palm, Gin’s wrist, M’s shoulder. Magical. It doesn’t usually light on me, because I’m the one with the camera.
This year, I was out with the puppies in the back yard. When here came the MC, making its erratic circles, evidently looking for the children who no longer live in this house. I tried to take a picture of him, but he wouldn’t hold still. So I have put circles around all the the things that might be him in the picture above. Then, all alone out there under the trees, I put out my own arms and held very still. Sure enough, he landed on my head. The softest touch – and then gone again. To land gently on my open hand.
But the puppies were wild and came running our way, so the MC took off, leaving me feeling a little lost. When he landed on a nearby leaf, I tried to get close enough to do a real portrait. But puppies — intrigued by my focus — came bursting along, and off he went, not to be seen again that afternoon.
2) Not Capistrano, but close. In the same way, every year there is a day when the swallows just suddenly appear. First there are none, then the entire sky is full of them – and when I say sky, I mean everything from the ground up. You stand in the front yard, and they zoom right past your head. One year, we realized that there were these little ant things with wings rising awkwardly up out of the grass of our yard into the air. There were reams of dragonflies darting around the yard (this happens several times a summer), snapping up the winged ants as they rose, sucking them dry, and dropping the husks back into the grass. And the swallows were – well, swallowing up the dragon flies, right in mid swoop, one after the other.
I haven’t seen the winged ants since, and haven’t noticed dragonflies for a long time—but two days ago, right on time, there were the swallows, dancing, streaming around the house like wind made visible. Again, I wanted to shoot them, but the dance is amazingly dynamic – all through the yard, then up over the roof of the garage, then filling the air corridor over the street, then way up over the house, dozens of them, swooping, gliding, charging, dropping, zooming. So I just pointed the camera up and shot, hoping I’d catch more than one. Which I did. Finally.
I was alone for this, too. I said to the puppies – “Do you see them? They’re back. You can set your watches now.”
This has nothing to do with any tradition, or even with spring. I just love exposed roots and leaf mast.
And this is just the front doorway. I liked the warmth of the color.
And that’s the whole enchilada.
P.S. want some fun?
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