Crazy Weather!

Hasn't the weather been crazy?! It was quite a storm last Friday night. I stood out in our field and watched the lightning off in the distance as the storm was coming our way. It was pretty impressive....lots of cloud to cloud lightning that continued on for a long time after the storm had passed. We got some rain, but not much wind. Our trash can didn't even blow over. Who knew that just a mile away toward town, they were having a tremendous storm which took down many, many trees and caused our electricity to be off for about 25 hours....and we were lucky.....in toward town they were out for 2 1/2 days!

The other day as I was making my morning coffee I glanced out the kitchen window, and there in our backyard were 4 (!) tom turkeys "strutting their stuff", showing their tail feathers for just one lucky lady turkey. I'm enjoying having the hummindbirds around again. There are at least two coming to my feeders regularly.

I knew there was a good reason why I love flowers so much. I was reading an article in the Rutgers magazine that researchers have offered convincing evidence that flowers may be potent mood elevators. People who were given the gift of flowers for what they thought was a reward for participating in a study on mood were feeling happier days later than people who had been given either a decorative candle or a fruit basket. Happiness was measured by a special type of heartfelt smile that neither the candle nor the fruit basket elicited. One researcher called flowers "the pets of the plant world" in that, like a pet, flowers help reduce stress by making us feel good. Works for me!

Spring Progress, Space News

I picked my last lilacs on Wednesday. I'm so sorry to see them go, as I love the wonderful aroma of lilacs. However, to take their place, my roses have started to bloom, and I picked a fragrant bouquet yesterday. Any day now I'll have peonies too. It's been so warm that my pansies are getting "leggy" already, and soon I'll have to pull them out and replace them with summer annuals.

I had my eye on a nice patch of buttercups along the road, but when I stopped today to pick some for pressing, the roadside had been mowed! Fortunately, the mower missed the short buttercups, so I found plenty to press. Buttercups are perhaps the nicest and easiest flower to press. They keep well after pressing, maintain their bright color, and are just the right size to add to a pressed flower picture. I always try to press plenty of buttercups every spring.

Perhaps you've seen the bright light that almost looks like an incoming airplane in the western sky in early evening. It's Venus, and is visible between about 30 to 90 minutes after sunset. You can't miss it! Also, there are lots of good sighting possibilities of the International Space Station coming up in the next week. If you haven't already checked, you can go to www.heavens-above.com, plug in your own zip code, and find out when the space station will be visible in your "neck of the woods". The next shuttle mission to the space station is scheduled for May 14....maybe we'll be able to spot both the shuttle and the space station this time as the shuttle races to catch up with the "station"!

There's some "Old Farmer's Advice" circulating on the internet. Most of what I receive isn't worth repeating, but this one has some great thoughts. Here's my favorite of the bunch:

"Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God."

I think that says it all!