Feeling Grumpy? How about some May Flowers Monday? #beauty #flowers #spring

Mondays aren't exactly most people's favorite day- what with the reminder that the busy work week must begin anew and they must leave the carefree wonderful days of freedom (to lay around doing nothing) behind until TGIF comes to call again.







This spring has been bitter cold and even now, it seems to rain more than anything else, so with the days being quite drab and gloomy, I thought I'd share some brightness from my yard to yours, even if its only in a cyber garden. Enjoy!

Earlier, in the coldest part of the spring, I had a few small hyacinths attempt to brave the weather to bring a smile to my face, but they petered out when the snows struck again. Then my lilac bloomed and it smelled LOVELY! I already miss the heavenly aroma of the blossoms.






Now my yard is coming alive with one of my favorite perennials- Irises. These I'm sharing today are mostly just from a small bunch my grandmother dug up and shared with me. Aren't they beautiful? And they make me smile. I'm not sure what it is about them...blooms that remind me of a regal majestic lion's head, or the happy headdress of a magical fairy queen.

It does quite remind me of some of the old cartoons as a child where the garden flowers come to life with human expressions and characteristics and dance and sing. I think that's what makes me smile the most!

 Hope you have a WONDERFUL MONDAY!

WIPlash Wednesdays-Descriptive Writing

Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader - not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.

~E.L. Doctorow~

What Do YOU see?

As a reader, I enjoy epic novels with great attention to detail. I don't just want to see the waterfall—I want to hear the roar of it as it rushes over the cliffs above. I want to feel the cool spray as if I'm close enough to reach out and let it sprinkle and splash on me, close enough to dive right into the swirling, rolling waters (nevermind that I can't actually swim).

Then I would relax next to a large rock, smoothed over time, where the water laps lazily against the gray stone slab. I could feel the soft swishing of the waves against my body as the noonday sun beats down, warming my skin through the lush leaves of the branches above. Hear the twittering tropical birds swooping and calling to each other in the distances while the sweet aromatic flora scents waft in on the breeze and envelope my senses. High in the sky, white wispy clouds drift by on a cerulean canvas.

As a writer, I also enjoy incorporating details to bring the scenery to life—to bring all the reader's senses into play, to see, feel, smell, hear and maybe even taste, what's there. I want them to join me in the moment, to live it as they read it.

What good is writing if it doesn't conjure up a reality? those adventures we love so much might seem like random words strung together, but the beauty comes when those words segue from a blank screen of nothingness—opening onto a scene, the characters, a room or setting- and a movie begins to play out, to take shape in the mind of a reader.

The Kelly green grass on the hillside glistened in shimmering dewdrop diamonds in the cool early summer morning light. Golden sunshine warmed the white wooly sheep grazing the valley near the babbling brook that divided the countryside. Yellow dandelions dotted the banks on either side as little Tommy chased his Labrador retriever down a dusty lane nearby.

Tommy stopped to pick a dandelion that had gone to seed. He lifted it gently, squeezed his eyes shut so tight his eyelids ached, then blew the white tuffs with all the air in his lungs. Squinting one eye open, Tommy watched, his jaw slack, as the tiny puffs rose into the heavens and drifted away like so many miniature umbrellas floating to mysterious destinations and far-off places his five-year-old mind could only daydream about. A row of lilacs in bloom perfumed the air with their sweet aroma.

Smoky, the jet black Lab, dashed back to his young master whose sandy brown hair, tousled by the breeze, had fallen into his eyes. Tommy took a deep breath, threw back the strands of hair and tossed the spent dandelion stem over his shoulder, then snatched a twig from the roadside.

"Get it, Smoky!" Tommy reared back and flung the stick toward the creek. Darting through the tall damp grass, the dog leaped through the air and splashed down in the shallow water. Racing back to Tommy, Smoky appeared to grin with the twig in his slobbery jowls. The dog dropped the stick at his boy's feet, then shook the water from his shiny black fur, dousing Tommy in cold creek water.

"You silly dog!" Tommy squealed, falling to his knees and wrapping his arms around Smoky's damp neck, paying no mind to the cloying wet-dog smell emanating off his pooch. "I love you."

********

Can you see it? Feel it? Smell it?

All that on the fly, a little word play in a free writing exercise, but it came to me, rolling out in a mini-burst of detailed inspiration.

What about you?
Anything by a writer that ever stuck with you~ long after you were finished reading it?

The outdoors called to me today so my daughter and I took our leisure on a blanket in the yard for an hour or so. The noise, noise, noise of the indoors just finally got to me I suppose. I couldn't think for the tumbling of the clothes in the dryer and the chatter of daughter's cartoons. I needed the escape and the peace of quiet time (albeit, my daughter still jabbered up a storm as usual.)

It's was hard to tell which direction the wind was blowing on this fine warm September day. It seemed to swirl around me, first from the south, then north and east and west. I'm not really good with the directional points of my internal compass, but I believe it's mostly coming in out of the east.

I was spying on hummingbirds only a few feet away from where I was seated on a blanket in the yard, near the feeder. There was one sitting on a tree branch, swaying in the breeze.(see photo to the left) It looked as though it was bobbing its head back and forth to the music of nature.

It's any wonder that the poor little thing was able to hang onto the branch or the feeder as breezy as it was outside this afternoon. This is one of our "bully" hummingbirds who runs off all of them when they try to come get something to drink.

My last two giant sunflowers have hung their heads, given up to the last hazy days of summer, sacrificing seeds to birds and such. I heard the cawing of crows up high in the trees, calling to one another.

The crisp leaves rustled from the branches, rolling their way across the yard and I heard the clicking and repetitive call of grasshoppers, crickets, katydids and quite possibly the last few cicadas of the season.

A butterfly bravely, and without heed, fluttered by against the wind, which had kicked up a flurry of leaves. They shuddered down, abandoned by their parental units, to die amongst their fallen brothers on the dry faded grass. Mother Oak and Father Walnut kicked them from the nest. Gone from a flourishing life lived for a short time as maturity gave way to death and a spring that will come again without them.

"Caw caw caw" and "Tickity tickity tickity" called the crows and katydids, their song an infinite melody. The sweet smell of honeysuckle mingled with the musky aroma of dead leaves and mossy woods. The breeze caressed my skin, infiltrated my senses, the air thick with the heavy perfumes of Autumn.

The sky has been tempered with a grayish blue and though the trees are still green for the most part, they know it's coming...losing bits of themselves as these days wear on.

Our state flower, the goldenrod(right), is shining in all it's brilliant glory along the fence row at the back of our yard.

My sedum, or house leek, is still blooming in beautiful white with pink tinted centers, the some of the heads already turned burgundy as they begin to die off. The little bees still love the blossoms though.

As I wandered the yard with my camera, I tried to capture some of nature to bring indoors, to enjoy and share. I was not quite quick enough to catch the orange and black and brown and blue and bright yellow butterflies that zipped by in their wild and random paths across the sky and I missed a good opportunity to capture the leaf storm that flurried down from the silver poplar behind the house. Maybe next time.

I hope that everyone is able to get out and enjoy these wonderful days we're having. It's such a sweet release from the hot and humid dry days of summer we've had this year. Autumn is feeling good, giving us the ability to spend our time in quiet contemplation and reflection. I plan to embrace these gentler days before the cold weather sets in, for I have a feeling winter's chilly breath will be breathing down our necks sooner than expected.

Plus, I hope that the quiet time will also help me open up the creative lines so that I can dig into my novels with more enthusiasm, more perspective and more clarity.