Annual Orchid Preview

Last Friday evening I went to the preview reception for the annual Orchid Show at the NC Arboretum.

It's always a treat to see the displays of orchids, browse the vendor offerings, and partake of a few refreshments while viewing whatever art exhibit is upstairs in the Education Building.

I didn't bring my camera with me this time.  I had decided to just absorb the beauty without trying to capture it in images.

Well about two-thirds through the show I changed my mind and decided to take "just a few pictures" using my phone.  So here they are for you to enjoy!

Walking from Winter to Spring

The other day my friend Alice and I took a nice long walk from her house to Grovewood Gallery and returned by a different route.  Technically our walk started on the last morning of Winter and ended mid-afternoon on the first afternoon of spring.  It was a pretty, sunny day and a nice way to usher in spring!
I took a lot of pictures, so had to be selective in choosing which to include in this post.
Everywhere we looked, there were sweet spring flowers in bloom.  I'm not sure what these tiny flowers are.  The photo may look like phlox, but that's not what they are.

 And there were lots of daffodils and narcissus:

Here some pansies are sharing some space with the daffodils... they seem to get along well.

 
 And crocus, though they are mostly finished now.

 And here is some ground phlox, which was tumbling over a rock wall:

It is about a 2 mile walk to the gallery and much of it is gradually uphill.  So we were happy to see our destination in sight.

The Grovewood Gallery is next door to the Grove Park Inn which is clearly in view from Kimberly Ave.

In front of the Grovewood Gallery there is a sculpture garden.  Here are a couple of the pieces of artwork residing there.

And I wanted to add a couple shots taken from the Grove Park Inn.

The first one shows how nicely the grass is greening up on one of the fairways of the golf course.

And though it doesn't show the city skyline, the large white building just north east of center in the picture is Claxton School.  Alice's house is just a block away from that building.

And here's another view which I included even though the sun and a cloud obscured the upper right hand corner, because you can see Claxton School just under the mountains to the right.

To bring this to a close, I'll just add a few more pictures.

I think these next two photos are two types of sedum, one that the sun has brought out some gold in and the other rust.

 This lady buddha statue was standing guard in front of a private home.

It was a perfect day for a walk, punctuated by a nice lunch at the Grovewood Cafe!

Happy Spring!

The View from 1001

Last weekend we were in NYC and, as has usually been the case lately, we stayed at the Sheraton Four Points near the Queensboro Bridge in Queens.  It's conveniently located just a few blocks from the subway that can take us either into Manhattan or to Astoria where my daughter lives.

This time we were in Room 1001 which gave us a very nice view of the Manhattan skyline.  So I just wanted to share a couple of photos with you.  These were taken, at a slight angle, through the window glass, so they are far from perfect, but it was a pretty darn nice view to wake up to.  I think these two shots were taken on two different days.  So even though it was really chilly out, we had brilliant sun for most of our short stay!

The first photo highlights the bridge and the second one moves over a bit to the left to show not only the Chrysler Building, but also the Empire State Building.

A Walk on the Slope

Today is March 4th and we woke to just the lightest sprinkling of snow on this chilly morning that is already warming up.  Kind of like we were hit by powdered sugar through the night.  Could this be the last snow we see this winter?  Fingers crossed!

It seemed like a nice morning to go down the slope to our little stream and check on the progress of the daffodils.  Of course, I took my camera.

First stop was the bird bath.  I guess the birds will be ice skating for a while this morning!

As I went down the steps toward our little stream, I saw lots of clumps of daffodils at this stage.

But the best pop of color is here:

Here is a ground level view of our stream:

Coming back up, I took this picture of snow (and sunshine) on the holly:

And while I'm there, I always like to take a picture of the house from below... you can see our nice, clear blue sky today.  The snow won't last long! (In fact if I hadn't told you, you wouldn't see any snow on the slope!)

And then the view from our deck, down the slope to the stream:

Our cactus does not appear to have liked the winter.  Not only were there some unusually cold temperatures this year, it got covered with snow during our most recent major snowfall, and then while it was under snow, the neighborhood kids trampled it when they took a shortcut under our deck to use our steps to jump over to the area beyond the stream.  It looks pretty sad, but I bet it will revive!  Cacti are tough!

 Looking down on it from the deck, I even see some green!

When I lived up north, March was probably my least favorite month.  Not only was it long, but it was the time of year when everyone wanted to head south for a respite from winter.  Often it was snowy and then rainy, and when the occasional warm, sunny day started to melt away the snow/ice banks, you could see the dirty remnants of all the seasons storms in the grimy ice piles that were slowly eroding away... and turning to muddy messes!  We often got some of our worst snowfalls in March.

Here I find March to be fascinating and one of my favorite months.  We have certainly had enough of winter and throughout March, if it hasn't happened already, we see new signs of spring every day.  Already the pussy willows are out, all the buds on the trees are swollen and colored, the grass is starting to green up, and in just another day of sunshine, we will likely have dozens of daffodils in bloom on our slope!