Ten Days of Little Celebrations - May 2013

Back in August 2012, I posted about finding something to celebrate each day. It’s an easy thing for me to do and the habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. Here are some ‘little celebrations’ I’ve noted this month:

Peonies at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. The whole garden was special but the peonies were the highlight. See the post here.

Rhododendron at the Norfolk Botanical Garden. Lots of beautiful plants and glass artwork…but the rhododendron were at their best. See the post here.

A balanced diet day that met 90% nutritional requirements from food. I started recording me food intake on cronometer.com and learned very quickly that there was room for improvement. First I got the protein/carbs/fat percentages aligned to the recommendation (when I started, fat was overwhelming carbs too frequently); then I started to improve the percentage of nutritional targets I achieved with food (from the low 80s to low 90s). It has be more of a learning experience than I anticipated - and a very positive one.

New camera. I am thoroughly enjoying my new camera (a Canon PowerShot SX280 HS). See some blog posts about it here and here.

Planting seedlings grown in egg shells. I planted some seedlings started in egg shells that are doing well in pots on the deck. See the gleanings post that gave me the idea.

Lowest weight of the year; highest stock market day of the year. These may seem like unrelated metrics but they are both items I monitor daily. It is a day to celebrate when they both move in the right direction on the same day.

Horseshoe crabs at Sandy Point State Park. The view of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge would have been the highlight for me if the day had not been so misty. Instead I flipped over a horseshoe crab that had stranded itself upside down on the beach and celebrated that is crawled back into the water. I’ll be doing a post about the park in a few days.

Osprey, barn swallows, and immature bald eagle at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. I cannot pick which of the three birds I enjoyed spotting more! I’ll have a blog post in a few days.

Blue grosbeak and egrets at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge. The surprise of seeing a purple grosbeak in the wild for the first time was quite a high point…but then the myriad egrets and their antics took the stage. Pictures will be posted in a few days.

Finding a surprise iris in my garden. I thought I had moved all the iris bulbs from the back garden that had gotten too shady to the front garden where they would get more sun. It worked - they are booming in profusely in their new flower bed but I found on lone flower in the back flower bed….a missed bulb that managed to bloom even in the shade. I celebrated its survival.

Norfork Botanical Garden

I toured the Norfolk Botanical Garden the day after the Lewis Ginter which I posted about yesterday. The weather was still cool and cloudy but I was surprised at the difference being on the shore and a little further south meant. Quite a range of plants highlighted the visit.

There were the normal spring beauties like May Apples (left) and purple flags (on the right surrounding a Great Blue Heron sculpture).

Roses like cooler weather too. They are better now (and then again in the fall) than in the heat of summer. The yellow ones against the rough block wall relieve the harshness of its new construction.

But the rhododendrons stole the show - similarly to the peonies at the Lewis Ginter. I captured the phases of the clumps of flowers unfurling from tight buds. Don’t rhododendrons have the classic shape of a bouquet fit to be carried in a formal procesession?

There was glass sculpture by Craig Mitchell Smith displayed in the garden. My favorite was the blue jelly fish in the conservatory.

And what about a vine with white flowers unfurling - tight spirals expanding to gentle curves.

To end this very full post - enjoy the graceful curves of an aging tulip and spunky columbines. 

On the Road

I have been on the road quite a lot the past few weeks. There were some long stretches where I was driving and kept myself focused on that activity rather than noticing too much of the scenery. This blog is about the times I was not driving and the road itself drew my attention.

There was an unpaved road of an oak allee. In the 1860s, the trees would not have been as massive but the road would have been like this - a white, sandy track near Charleston, South Carolina. I saw it on a tram tour. It is just a road to nowhere now since the plantation house is gone.

I posted about the Ravenel Bridge a few days ago. This picture shows the approach to the bridge and the graceful arc the bridge makes between the supports. The traffic moved at highway speeds the 10 or so times we crossed the bridge. Is the beauty and uniqueness of the bridge distracting enough to cause accidents? I didn’t see any but was glad I was not driving.

On foot in Charleston, we walked along tourist clogged sidewalks on Church Street. This was a place where being on foot was better than being in a car. The palm trees and window boxes added color to the brick and ironwork of the buildings. And sometimes the street pavement was cobblestones rather than asphalt!

The bridge and tunnel between Norfolk and Hampton, Virginia was another opportunity to photograph the road from a passenger seat. The choppy water under the bridge sometimes formed white foam against the pillars of the bridge. The tile in the tunnel reflected the red tail lights.

And now I am home again - for a little while.