Everything’s Coming Up Yellow (Well, Almost)

This is my favorite time of year. Everything is fresh, and so many flowers are blooming. The leaves on the trees are bright green and lustrous, and the branches support the baby birds who just fledged from their nest. Seedlings are popping up in the garden, and they are strong. I know that in a couple of months it will be hot, the spring flowers will be gone, and the tree leaves will be big and dusty. Everything in the garden will be leaning over, needing support. Summer has its positive side too, but spring truly does feel like a rebirth of mind and spirit.

It’s an exciting time for me because I have family coming to visit this week. My three nephews will be here with their parents, so my house will have five little boys in it! I’m expecting it to be a little chaotic, but I also think it’ll be fun. I’m especially excited to be able to meet my youngest nephew for the first time. He’s three-years-old.

I have finished testing my nine-year-old, and I promise I’ll write about that when I can. It went well, and I’m so glad it’s over. We will be taking a break for awhile and then during the summer I’ll be doing some lessons with the boys, but mostly things they want to do. I’m very excited to dig into the science curriculum I bought for the nine-year-old. I think he’ll enjoy it.

My nine-year-old’s pitcher plant bloomed for the first time this year. The flowers are starting to wilt now, but they are still quite stunning.

I was really touched that my last blog post encouraged some long-time readers to introduce themselves for the first time. I thought I might get a few comments on that post, but I didn’t expect that! Thank you all for reading my blog and taking a moment to say hello.

The Venus flytrap is thriving and the biggest we’ve ever seen it.

I will close this going-nowhere-particular blog post and get back to my cleaning (oh man, the cleaning!) as I prepare to have guests this week, and I’ll leave you with some photos from my yard. I have nothing but yellow flowers growing in the front right now — if I were a more skilled gardener, I could probably figure out how to time it right to get an array of colors, but yellow is a pretty and happy color, so I’m not down on it. In the backyard, I have my pink roses and a lead plant that I bought at the botanical garden a few years ago. I’m so happy it’s surviving! And my boys’ carnivorous plants are always quite stunning.

My six-year-old wants to start a carnivorous plant collection, so I got him started with one Venus flytrap. Unfortunately, we had to put a cage around it because the squirrels keep digging in the pot. @#$%!

These flower photos are dedicated to Camie, a frequent reader, and she’ll know why. 😉

From biggest to smallest: white-top pitcher plant, Venus flytrap and sundew.

I only planted green beans and tomatoes this year because I knew that’s probably all I could handle. Plus, we have too much shade over the garden now. 😦

Only planted part of the garden this year.

These creeping roses grow along the fence by the garden and bloom every spring for a few weeks. They are glorious.

The lead plant. Someday it should get very big and fill in the corner of the yard where nothing else is growing.

The lead plant has these cool, purple flowers.

Don’t let these photos fool you into thinking we have an idyllic yard. Most of the yard has weeds needing pulled, uncultivated flower beds, and bare ground where no grass grows. There’s only so much we can do with the time and money we’ve got! I focus my lens on what makes me happy.

Have a happy spring.