Right in My Own Front Yard

"Today is the day when daffodils bloom . . . . . "
I posted earlier in the day bemoaning the lack of spring eye-candy in my back yard. Guess what was happening beside the front door step as the sun chased the last day of March into April. My daffodils opened above last year's oak leaves. Pretty blue Chiondoxia smiles into the breeze. Glory of the Snow - sweet harbinger of spring. Click here for Daffodil Celebration!

COMING UP CLOVER

Blogs from around the world are noting spring's arrival. Latitudinally-lower luckies! Northwest Ohio is sloooowly thawing and seems a little reluctant to doff it's winter undies. True, the possum is nesting under the shed - you can see the divot created by her comings and goings. The robin is singing sweetly, the Carolina Wren is in full rollicking voice, but there's very little for the eyes. To compensate, I've festooned windows and tables with ceramic hope and tinfoil prayer. You'll note looking past the windsock-bunnies gamboling in the 'save-the-birds-from-the-window' clover, that there's very little spring in my oak woods. Then feast your eyes on my little niece Katie and you'll see that spring is sprung just a little further south :0)

The Sonoran Desert Museum

Yikes! Click HERE to see the Ornate Tree Lizard

Unidentified lovely

Cactus Wren click - Here! Gambel's Quail - Here!

View of dust devils from Gates Pass - Tuscon, Arizona

Mojave Rattlesnake

It's all about survival - so apparent here at the Sonoran Desert Museum - more evident than any place I've ever been. The drought has severly stressed the environment and the birds are not laying eggs this spring and there are no baby rabbits. Still, life persists in all its amazing, lovely and fearsome forms.

Mission Xavier Del Bac

The Jesuit who founded this Catholic mission in southeastern Arizona was an Italian born on August 10, 1645. Eusebio Francisco Kino was an accomplished mathematician and astronomer as well as a man of faith. He had wanted to go to the orient, but was sent instead to Mexico from where he traveled extensively in his quest to save souls.

Tuscon, Arizon

A perfect dust print of the sole of my sandals on the rental car's dashboard is my only souvenir from the Spanish mission of San Xavier del Bac. That and the reflections on faith as we watched the queues of people slowly filing past the figure of St. Francis of Assisi - patting its head , some even lifting it stiffly from its pillow. A weathered lady and her companion from the Yukon explained to me that Lenten piety brought the Indians in such large numbers on this hot Sunday afternoon. Tourism and devotion don't mix. 'Voyeur' doesn't begin to cover the range of thoughts and feelings as I sat for a few moments on a well-worn pew watching the supplicants waiting patiently to leave a photograph or make the sign of the cross at the shrine in the alcove beside the elaborately carved sanctuary.
My husband taught me how create an oil painting out of photos in ACDSee, so I've tweaked every photo I took at the Mission into a great masterpiece.I told him he's created a monster.