MLK Quote

MLK Quote

Nature's Inspiration Movie

http://www.flickspire.com/m/HealthierL433/NaturesInspiration -- Nature's Inspiration Movie: The photographs in this short video are from award-winning photographer, Ken Jenkins, and they are breathtaking. However, this video is much more than beautiful photographs! Peggy Anderson has compiled beautiful quotations from the likes of Emerson, Thoreau, and many others that truly capture the beauty of nature and solitude. Absolute must watch for nature lovers.

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

This is just a quick update. Bees are Gone :-(...

I look up as I sit down to write this post and peer outside. It looks like a forest out there with green everywhere. Spring is back with full force. Who would say that just little over a month back, on April 15, we had a freak snow-storm, and I wrote down in my diary: I am dreaming of a white little Christmas...well, I do celebrate the festival of Christmas with everybody else in December. But, I think historians are in dispute over the actual birth-time of Christ. Some say that He was indeed born in December. Some say the story of the wise sages following the stars mean that He might have been born in April or May. If that's true, then I don't have to dream of a white Christmas but actually can see it, feel it and thus start celebrating the White Christmas of those historians who think He was born now :-) in April. So, here is the picture of the outside on May 15 (on April 15, there were not a single leaf on any of these trees; everything was covered in snow):

Snow indeed came on April 15. The weekend before, temperature rose to about 85 degree F(29 degree C). The morning of April 14, the temperature was about 75. Then, it started dropping as gusty wind and rain blew in. By nightfall it was a freezing 19 degree F (-7 degree C). We woke up on April 15 with thin layer of dusty-snow on everything, everywhere. The sun was up and so the snow melted fast, but the freezing temperature continued for two more days and then rose again. But freezing temperature, especially in evening and night, continued until about the last week of April. Then, within a short span of time of about two weeks, everything become green and started growing crazily. This was the first time in my life, though my life is not that long but still, that I saw snow in April with daffodils, hyacinths, primulas, crocuses and other bulbs blooming.

Spring has been trying to come here since March 20. On the first day of Spring, the weather was so warm and sunny that we worked a lot in our garden. Lots of work going on there with installation of new trellis, arches, dog-run fence, newer beds, bird-baths, digging, pruning, cleaning...and the list continues as you know. When we first got this house five years back, our backyard was just a green lawn with three evergreens at the end, some evergreens on the side, and two rose-bushes in the corner. Since then, we are trying to turn it into a our little paradise-oasis. But, it's a bad-breaking, time-taking and money-spending affair and thus going slowly.

But a lot has been done and still need to be done. Lots of new flowering plants, trees and rose-bushes got planted. I will write about them slowly throughout the summer. In the meantime, I end this post with the worry that I don't see any bees around here except one or two in a week; butterflies are also hardly coming. With spring like temperature, on and off, since March 20, I expected more buzzing but alas.....So, here are the flowers that are now blooming in my garden. With so much flowers around, bees were busy buzzing everywhere in the previous years. Did this harsh winter affect them? What's everybody experiencing about bees, especially those who faces a bitter winter last year?
These are just some of the flowers that are blooming. I now have some amazing perennials and natives in the garden about which I will write later. As you see, there are so many flowers in the garden; flowers of all sorts of color, but there are no bees to be seen :-(. I am linking this post to Rambling Wood's Nature Notes.

13 comments:

  1. Beautiful flowers... Yes I live in western NY and everything is about a month behind. I have only seen a few bees and it takes time for the overwintering bumble bee queen to establish her new nest and to produce workers, so I am not too worried yet and I think it is the same for you. The fireflies don't start her until June and I think they may be late too. Don't worry yet and give it some time KL....Michelle

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  2. The flowers are beautiful and looks like the late snow just made everything even more beautifully green. But I guess maybe it froze the bees and butterflies? That's not good at all. Maybe they just went to fflorida during the cold spell and haven't made it back yet )) ... We can always hope.

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  3. At last, winter in your part of the world is over. Your winter is just like our dry season, deleting the weak from the strong, survival of the fittest at its best. But you have a wonderful garden with lots of colors now, and the green surroundings look they are so happy!

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  4. Many lovely blooms. We see bees in the garden but definitely far fewer than two years ago. I have seen more butterflies than last year, but then last year there were hardly any.

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  5. Lovely to see your garden has woken up and is in full swing again. The bees and butterflies will come, just have patience with them. They might not be as many as in a good year, they vary from year to year, but they will come. If you have a good summer this year and no extreme winter again this time (heaven forbid!), next summer there will probably be more.

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  6. Your blooms are just outstanding! So much beautiful color here! I do hope that bees come soon to your space though I know that they are being greatly affected by what we are doing to the environment. Wishing you the best this weekend...Nicole

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  7. I have not seen many bumblebees yet and hardly any butterflies, but LOTS of little native bees on plants like Sweet Alyssum, Cranesbill Geraniums, Penstemon, Love-in-a-Mist and my "October" Skies Aster (which apparently has started blooming months early).

    Especially that Aster! Wow. Never seen little bees so happy on any plant, I think.

    The Natchez crape myrtles are just starting to bloom, which I think should draw in honey bees. (Well, I'm not an expert on bee ID, but they look like honey-bee-size to me.)

    And with the Vitex, Coneflowers and Hypericum all starting or about to start to blooming, I HOPE I'll soon be inundated with bumbles!

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  8. Nice to see you again, it's been a long winter for you hasn't it? I'm sure the bees will return. Here in Scotland we don't see the bees too early in the year and as the summer moves on they come back in their droves. Only today, I noticed a big difference in the numbers visiting my garden.
    You've plenty on offer for them - they will find it. It might take them a while but they will. Watch out for the queens - then the workers won't be too far behind. Have a nice weekend :) PS it has been known to snow here in Scotland in June!

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  9. Oh I hope you see bees soon...it took a while but they are out in full force here...if they are still gone for you even with all your blooms, it may be because of neighbors who might be spraying....I hope not!

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  10. Lovely flowers and post, Very nice fotos and post
    Wonderfull, greeting from Belgium

    See vidéo you tube art floral castel Beloeil Belgium made for my friend Nicole

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EddJXGiFnpU
    Expo Amaryllis Expo art Floral 2014

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  11. Hi Karen Hope all is well as I can't find any later posts. Thanks for visiting FullTime-Life!!

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  12. There are more bees here this year than last - though fewer than a few years ago. Not as many butterflies, either.

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  13. I have lots of bees here. I've only seen a few butterflies but now that school's out, I'll have more time in the garden to observe the wildlife.

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