Blue, blue, blue

Brilliant blues

 happy blues!

Finally spring weather has arrived

and with it

blue skies

blue feathers

blue flowers and bright blue foliage.

Inside beautiful blue irises

and

outside the dainty bright blues and subtle blues

of spring bulbs

garden decorations have survived the winter

and gleam in the sunshine

Muscari

Periwinkle

Forget MeNot

Hyacinth

and most brilliant of all the blue skies, here seen through the cherry blossoms

and the sky reflected in the water on a small pond

"The modern English word blue comes from Middle English bleu or blewe, from Old French bleu, bleve, blöe, a word of Germanic origin (Frankish or possibly Old High German blāo, "pale, wan, blue-grey")." (Wikipedia)

Blue often represents the human emotion of sadness, maybe related to rain, which is usually regarded as a trigger of low moods. 

"In German, on the other hand, to be "blue" (blau sein) is to be drunk. This derives from the ancient use of urine (which is produced copiously by the human body after drinking alcohol) in dyeing cloth blue with woad or indigo." (Wikipedia)

Blue is one of the primary colours, and one of my favorite colours. Far from representing sadness, blue to me evokes blue skies, happiness and optimism. A time to enjoy the outdoors and Nature's beauty and a great time to take pictures.

"Blue is commonly used in the Western hemisphere to symbolize the male gender in contrast to pink used for females, although in the early 1900s, blue was the colour for girls (as it had traditionally been the colour of the Virgin Mary in Western Art) and pink was for boys (as it was akin to the colour red, considered a masculine colour)." (Wikipedia)

The blue and orange Koi (below) in the still murky water of a nearby Japanese garden

is now quite active with the warmth of Spring

A female Mallard displays her blue feather patch, and the water reflects the blue skies.

The local mountains still have snow and look very blue in the distance.

New growth and last Fall's "hips" on the wild roses in the park.

Bluish needles on the Blue Spruce Tree (Picea pungens) below.

Glory of the Snow (Chionodoxa forbesii), below

Pretty blue, purple pansies.

New bluish foliage on my sage plant.

New growth on a Sedum plant is a light bluish colour.

The sky and trees are reflected in the pond at the Japanese Garden. 

Blue, blue, blue!

Bright blues, shy blues,

a happy, joyful

blanket of blue

gently wraps around me

and I

breathe in its' delicate scents,

feel the gentle warmth on my skin

look around in wonder

blue eyes, new sight.

I have had the cataracts removed from both eyes now, and am thrilled with the resulting near 20/20 sight. Eye drops for a couple more weeks and one or two more checkups; I expect I will be trying to take off my glasses or put in my contact lens for some time still, it's become second nature.

Ella Fitzgerald - Blue Skies

I have been doing some painting, some gardening, some sewing, some reading and lots of photography; a bit of an attention span problem, but no doubt I'll settle down. I finished the water colour below of Witch Hazel.

Witch Hazel watercolour

Thank you for dropping by, happy Whimsy Wednesday, until next week.......

This post selected by Thje SmittenImage.blogspot.com as Post of the Week

Aye, eye all around

The weather has been quite wet and rainy most of the week, March getting an early start on April showers, no doubt. The garden is moving along slowly to the promised May flowers and birds and critters are busy making a living.

Not a great week for photo walks so I did a bit of Spring clean up of my photo files and came up with this week's offering. A few of these may have been shown before, if so I apologize ahead of time.

This week the theme is about eyes again, but eyes in nature and in verse this time. The young mallard above, from last summer, was darting around the pond in front of the Planetarium, but keeping a little dark eye on me and my camera. The rooster below was very busy watching the hens, the other roosters and me.

"The eye is the jewel of the body."

Henry David Thoreau

"The eye speaks with an eloquence and truthfulness surpassing speech. It is the window out of which the winged thoughts often fly unwittingly. It is the tiny magic mirror on whose crystal surface the moods of feeling fitfully play, like the sunlight and shadow on a still stream." 

Henry Theodore Tuckerman

This Redwing Blackbird looks ready to chastize me for venturing too close to his territory. I liked how the reeds glowed in the afternoon sunshine.  The Anna's Hummingbird below reflects the red glow from the feeder. I may fill the feeders, but the hummingbirds still chitter at me and buzz me if I get too close at any other time. I once picked up a feeder to take it inside to clean and fill and surprised myself and the hummingbird sitting on the other side of the feeder; after a bit of a stare down the bird flew off.

I love the bright red Towhee eyes, I think it makes them look a bit comical though.

"With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things."

William Wordsworth

The female Redwing Blackbird, is so unlike the male, and this one was watching me carefully, I think I may have been close to her nest, which they build in in the reeds above the pond. A Sparrow stops foraging briefly to see that I am no threat.

"A beautiful eye makes silence eloquent, a kind eye makes contradiction an assent, an enraged eye makes beauty deformed. This little member gives life to every other part about us; and I believe the story of Argus implies no more than that the eye is in every part; that is to say, every other part would be mutilated were not its force represented more by the eye than even by itself."  

Joseph Addison

There are quite a few rabbits in the park, they forage in the grass and eat the leaves of the blackberry bushes, but they also have a very faithful group that supplies them with seeds, grains, pellets, carrots and vegetable bits.

"Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?" Groucho Marx

I don't know what this squirrel was carrying, maybe his purse, but this struck me as a funny pose.

"You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." Mark Twain

The compound eyes of a hover fly on an Echinacea flower (above) and below the "eye like" pattern on the wing of a butterfly. The butterfly picture was taken in a tent like structure that was very warm and humid, an atmosphere that the butterflies thrived in; I tended to wilt and went outside ocassionally to be revived in the cool air outside. This one seemed to be enjoying the fruit.

"Men trust their ears less than their eyes." Herodotus

The sheep and donkey are from a farm on Gabriola Island.

"The ear tends to be lazy, craves the familiar and is shocked by the unexpected; the eye, on the other hand, tends to be impatient, craves the novel and is bored by repetition."

W H Auden

The billy goat and horse I saw when I was visiting a local nursery, the horse was in a field close to where I parked.

This mama goat was having trouble with the "kids", they kept escaping under the fence.  Each day the owner would mend the fence and put them back inside and the next day they would be back outside again.

Well that is my spring cleaning offering.  It is fun to look through and air out the "photo closets" from time to time.

I have been rather lazy recently, partly to give my eye time to recover and partly because I got the cold/cough thing that has been making the rounds. Thank you to everyone for the good wishes following my surgery, I really appreciated it. I hope to be more perky and imaginative next week.



I did start on a couple of paintings but sadly nothing got finished; there is always next week.



Happy Whimsy Wednesday, until next week .............

Counting Down

The days are getting shorter and shorter as we move towards the Winter Solstice. It's only a matter of one or two minutes shorter each day and it happens every year. Don't get me wrong, I love the long days in the summer and this is the price we have to pay for living north of the 49 th parallel, but getting dark at around 4 pm seems a tad early to me and I know the days are even shorter further north.

The Solstice will occur at 05:30 (or 5:30am) Universal Time (UT) on December 22, 2011 at the longitude of Greenwich, England. It is known as the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere and the summer solstice in the southern hemisphere due to the seasonal differences. The date of the solstice varies from December 20 to December 23 depending the year in the Gregorian calendar.

Because Earth doesn’t orbit upright, but is instead tilted on its axis by 23-and-a-half degrees, Earth’s northern and southern hemispheres trade places in receiving the sun’s light and warmth most directly. That’s what causes winter and summer.

At the December solstice, Earth is positioned in its orbit so that the sun stays 23-and-a-half degrees below the north pole horizon on the day of the December solstice. As seen from 23-and-a-half degrees south of the equator, at the imaginary line encircling the globe known as the Tropic of Capricorn, the sun shines directly overhead at noon. This is as far south as the sun ever gets. All locations south of the equator have day lengths greater than 12 hours at the December solstice (their summer). Meanwhile, all locations north of the equator have day lengths less than 12 hours (our winter).

The bridge in the park before the sun is fully up

Long shadows at this time of year

So cooler days, long shadows and early sundowns. I find that I have less energy this time of year. On a recent sunny day I went down to the park to see check on the bird and animal residents. Many birds have migrated south for the winter, others like the snow geese winter here and summer in the "land of the northern sun".

The ducks seemed to be dozing, waiting for the sun to shine on their pond.

Then a Mallard duck has a quick bath before getting on with the day.

Then get on with the business of feeding. Here the ducks share a patch of grass with a Northern Red Shafted Flicker.

American Wigeons



Northern Red Shafted Flicker



There are still a few red-winged black birds around the pond, often on or near the rushes. They have such a distinctive song and I often hear them long before I catch sight of one.


Red Winged Black Bird



These crows were picking up and tossing the leaves, I guess in hopes of finding something edible beneath them.


Crow rummaging in the fallen leaves

 

These squirrels were feasting on the remaining berries or seeds in this tree.
 

A pair of squirrels feasting on berries



No sign of the beaver, but they have been busy here recently.

The heron appeared to be just waking from a nap, this one is high in a tree.

Most of these rabbits are feasting on black berry leaves but the black one seems to prefer the grass

Alyssum still flowering in the park

Grackle I think

 This seagull was strutting about and very vocal. Think he wanted his parents to feed him.

There has been quite a variety of funghi this year too, but these and the remaining flowers will soon be gone.

Like the animals and birds, I tend to sleep in a bit, seek shelter in the poor weather and get out whenever the sun shines. I will be glad when the solstice arrives and the days start getting a bit longer again, not long now.

"There is something about winter

which pares things down to their essentials

a bare tree

a black hedge

hold their own stark throne in our hearts."

 Moya Cannon

Here is some beautiful music for a winters day.

Vivaldi - Four Seasons (Winter)

I finished a commission this week and an image for our personal Christmas card. I do a new one every year and then release it onto the website the following year. I'll show you it in a couple of weeks.

Sometimes it is difficult to know when a painting or drawing is finished. That is true of this drawing (graphite and pencil crayon) of a cat I called "Mattie". I recently took it out and reworked it, now maybe it's finished. Honestly sometimes I need someone to physically take the pencil (or brush) out of my hand and say enough, this may be one of those cases:

"Mattie" - graphite and pencil crayon cat

Thanks for stopping by, happy Whimsy Wednesday, until next week.......