Fragile and Fleeting

....and then I watched as the wind took them...

beautiful tiny umbrella like, they spun away.

Love, Ellen.

She

In the late Autumn She discards her robes. She clearly becomes tired. Slowly her modesty drops. That which She hid is revealed, drop by drop, encouraged by the rain, the wind, and the cold. No longer does the sun warm her. The clock of her days slows down minute by minute. Sleep overcomes her for months. Quiet and rest fill her. Her lovely bones are revealed, elbows, knees and shoulders of nuance. The strength and beauty of her inner self astounds me.

Come Spring, come the sun, come the warmth...she slowly wakes up and like the modest woman she is, she seemingly overnight clothes herself in all of her glory. Neither wind nor Spring rain will reveal the loveliness of her curves, her bones, nor her feminine strength. Shy through the Spring, private through the Summer, She remains the one who lights up my world from my kitchen window.

I love her beauty through all of the seasons and give her thanks.

Saturday

Our sons were here. Our two grandsons were here as well as our granddaughter. Some mended fences in the pasture, one drove the tractor and spread fertilizer, someone welded and repaired the trailers used to haul our plants around the nursery, and one little girl checked on the chickens and brought the eggs in. It is always joyful to be together. At noon the seven of us sat down to eat lunch.
Good times shared.
Late in the afternoon some drifted in. The two grandsons who are brothers, gravitated to the front room to do what they like best.
One to play some violent game on my computer and the other to play the piano. Like our sons, they are polar opposites, but also like our two boys, they share the same core values and an abiding love of one another. As Seth demolished aliens on the screen, Andrew fingered Jerome Kern on the piano. (The irony of this did not escape me.) I cried quietly while cutting carrots in the kitchen.. for the beauty of Kern's melodies and the beauty that fills my life with these men and that one darling girl who all enrich my life.

Andrew and Jerome K.

Samantha and our foreman's daughter who fashioned tissue paper outfits for their dolls.
And Seth the monster slayer.

When every one was gone and the house was quiet, I went down to put more wood in the stove only to confront the sight of this. Nothing surprises me any more after all these years of living at this farm/nursery. It did rain most of the day, and apparently someone was worried that the drill with the 26" bit needed drying out.

 Wishing all a good week. (And, yes, this place needs spiffing up)

Love to all, Ellen.

Spring-ish

Spring in Western Oregon is such an on and off game of chance.

We've had our daffodils, the magnolias are stripped of blooms.

Dandelions freckle the grass, ferns flourish and the mosses,

oh, the cushy, verdant mosses are cloaking stem, trunk and every

rock they can claim...lots of real estate snapped up by those bossy mosses.

If you don't care for the weather, give it a few minutes and in the blink of an eye you may find a hole in the clouds and there will be that beautiful spot of blue. Wait a bit and the lovely blue will be zipped up tight, swallowed by the gun metal grey of a solid ceiling of clouds. Rain will fall as mist or in torrents that will flatten the grasses. Hail, too, may tattoo the drive and bounce off the roof. You'll put another log in the wood burner and turn on more lights in the house...only to trot around in the next hour to switch them off as glorious light fills the corners of your rooms. Ever changing and certainly capricious, that's our spring.

 I will leave you with a few photos from the last week or so.

Either a turkey vulture or turkey buzzard warming up before riding the thermals.

And last, a darling baby. I think that we have had at least nine born in the last few weeks. 

Thank you, as always, for your visits.

xo, Ellen,

(Well, that is certainly an interesting mess of "formatting". In all probability due to the fact that I have practically forgotten how to write a post.)

Wearing White for Eastertide

Loveliest of Trees

Wishing you a beautiful Easter.
Love to all, Ellen.