A cold blustery wind
has been sweeping across
our sere and open landscape
these past few days.
Snow spits
from our shuttered skies
and drifts into scant piles
in sheltered corners.
In the dead of winter,
summer seems a distant memory,
and our eyes long
for a splash of color.
At times like this,
I turn to thoughts of summer blue
and of burying my face
in its soft, cool depths.
Summer blue will be here before you know it :)
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way, those are the most beautiful shades of blue I've ever seen!
Thank you, Keith! My sister Bertie's hydrangeas are the loveliest blues I have ever seen. Most days they even beat the blues of the ocean. Have a good weekend!
ReplyDeleteGorgeous photos! And one of my favourite plants in the garden. I have quite a few of these scattered around my garden. I can't wait until spring! Soon...soon...
ReplyDeleteHi Martha! I, too, can't wait for spring to come! It is a beautiful time in Colorado ~ although the weather can swing wildly! As much as I want spring, I am hoping for a lot of snow in April and March. We need moisture! I hope that you are having a good weekend!
DeleteHow lovely! And they are absolutely perfect. Thanks for the reminder that the landscape won't always be so bleak. I did notice when I was walking the dog today and falling through the snow that we are now in Snow Crust Moon time. That is always a good sign. Not spring, but the last gasp of winter. Okay maybe the second to last gasp as we always get a storm in March :)
ReplyDeleteHi Francie! Thank you for the kind comment! Snow Crust Moon, what a beautiful name for the moon time! I used to love walking on snow crust as a kid! Have a happy day!
DeleteGorgeous! Plus one of my favourite Gordon Lightfoot songs, to boot.
ReplyDeleteHi Debra! Thank you! And Pussy Willows... has always been one of my favorite Gordon Lightfoot songs too! I hope that you are enjoying your day!
DeleteOh, how much I love the blue of hydrangeas! Did you know that depending on the acidity of the soil, they can be pink? They are always blue in Georgia!
ReplyDeleteWe might have snow flurries in the morning, but we really have had a nice winter. Some cloud and rain, but mostly very nice, can't complain.
Hi Kay. I love the blue hydrangeas best! These grow along the side of the deck at my sister Bertie's and her husband Peter's house in Nova Scotia. It's my favorite stand of hydrangeas anywhere. I'm glad you are having a good winter. Ours has been way too dry, and the temperature swings back and forth from lows to highs ~ hard on plants, animals, and people. Have a lovely Sunday, Kay!
DeleteOOOOOOHHHHH, my favorite flower!!! Like a breath of fresh air. And it's snowing here!!!!
ReplyDeleteHi Audrey! I'm glad that you enjoyed the pictures of the hydrangeas. They are glorious flowers, and among my most favorite. I bet that your kids are excited about the snow. I hope that it is enough that they can play in it. Have a good one!
DeleteYour words are poetry.
ReplyDeleteI'm loving these warm days, but the winds are fierce.
Thank you for the encouraging comment, Terry. I'm really thinking about my words, because this next phase of my life is going to involve a lot of writing, something I've always wanted to have time to do. I am happy to see a clear and warm day today, let me tell you. I'm at the Ameristar in Black Hawk right now, and the trees are moving on the hill, so I guess we still have wind. Have a good day!
DeleteI enjoy Gordon Lightfoot, but didn't remember this song.
ReplyDeleteI love your pictures of hydrangeas. Do you have them in your yard?
We used to have them in SC, both pink and blue ones. The color was influenced by the pH of the soil.
I like the imagery of your poem.
Hi Dreaming!
DeleteThank you for the kind comment!
The hydrangeas are in my sister Bertie's and her husband Peter's garden in Nova Scotia. They have our grandmother's house that my mother grew up in. That spot by their deck in the backyard must have just the perfect acidity in the soil, because the blue of the hydrangeas is glorious.
Thank you for the encouraging words about my imagery and for calling it a poem! I was't trying to write one because the thought of it scares me, but I try very hard to craft language. Maybe I'm a poet, and I don't know it! Hee hee!
Lightfoot's Pussy Willows... has been a favorite of mine for a long time, but it didn't get the play some of his other songs did.
Have a good Sunday, and travel safe!
O, I've always loved hydrangea; these ones are so bright and beautiful. I've been wanting to bring some home for ages, but for some reason every time I've ever seen them I've not had the car, and I can't carry the huge pots on the train haha
ReplyDeleteHi B&R, Smart decision about not lugging pots of hydrangeas on the train. That image had me laughing this Sunday morning! It so resonated with me because I am a retired elementary teacher, and I was forever lugging boxes and carts of stuff! Have a happy day!
DeleteSuper gorgeous blues of all shades....one of my favourites. I used to manage an art and drafting supply store in the '80's and learned so much about colour (pantone system for example) and all the myriad of shades. Cerulean blue I love.....!
ReplyDeleteOn this rainy Maritime day(at least it isn't wet snow and deep) I will draw upon the blues in your post and feel at peace inside!
Ron
Hi Ron! I'm happy that the blue hydrangeas make you feel at peace inside. They're my sister Bertie's and her husband Peter's at our grandmother's home. Well, it's theirs now, and they have done a lovely job of taking care of it. Bertie loves flowers, and she and Peter are growing all the flowers my grandmother loved.
DeleteSo you managed an art and drafting store! So cool! That is my second most favorite store to go to ~ after book stores! I could spend hours and hours and never get tired of all the things there.
Painting is one my list! It's just down the list in priority! First fitness. Then writing. Then photography. Then travel. Then get on top of the house (I have your basement equivalent in crawl space and other spots). Then art, music, and needle crafts.
Finally, I'm 100% again. It took forever to get past my cold. I hope that yours is going, going, gone!
Stay dry! I like snow more than rain ~ unless I'm driving! Belly rubs to Sophie!
Exactly where is Berti and Peter's place? I bet you told me and do you think I remember. Hydrangea blue is so very popular in our neck of the woods. You know we don't have a blue plant I really don't know why. We have other hydrangea but not the vivid blue...our gardening days have waned so we'll do with what we have...as they say...these'll do us out!
DeleteI loved working at the art store...I learned so much and met so many artists. Really it was the best decision I ever made to work there. Life's ups and downs changed that but I do know I have a wealth of knowledge from that decade!
You certainly have your priorities straight...fitness #1...no health..no wealth....swimming is the best...we used to swim all the time. One funny thing...when we drove across Canada in 1979 we always said we swam across...going from university to university pool...worked out perfectly.
The cold has now left the room....I was not a happy camper...I know you understand...I kept telling Jim to wash his hands...and guess what he listened! HUH!
Ron
Hi Ron!
DeleteI just found this! I'm glad your cold is gone!
I'm actually going swimming tomorrow after my walk on the treadmill. I have to swim from Bar Harbor to Yarmouth and then from Sydney to Port Aux Basques. I haven't calculated the distance yet, but so far I gone 3,100 feet. I have a lot of swimming to do; but if you and Jim can swim across Canada, I can do it too!.
Too bad that you couldn't have worked longer at the art store! Both my parents were painters. Roy and Barbie are painters, but have been too busy to do what they would like. I have three nieces who were doing amazing watercolors at a young age. I've been told by instructors in some education courses I had to take that I have artistic talent ~ so we'll see.
I don't know if you have heard of Kelsey Raymond, but he is Mom's first cousin and Aunt Nan's son. He was quite a talented painter. Bottom line I love the smell of oil paint! And turpentine, and linseed oil!
I'm not sure how to explain where Bertie's and Peter's home is. It's on the main road that goes through the Cove maybe a kilometer east of where the road to Harbour View is. I'll send you a picture! I'll have to google Smith's Cove, and see if I can be more definitive!
You're going to think I'm nuts, but you can google map in on Smith's Cove, put the little street view man on the post office, go east (to right facing the water), come to Church Road and a white church, keep moving east looking at the houses on the right side: the first after the church is my sister Barb's, the next is my brother Roy's, and the third is Bertie's sort of a beige shingled saltbox. There is a dead tree with its limbs lopped off and a white house directly across from Bertie's.
There has got to be an easier way than this! I tried! You don't have to!
You just indicated that you just discovered this comment from me. I know what you mean with all the followers and keeping up. What I discovered was that I "subscribe" to my own post. I click the subscribe button and then all comments appear in my gmail account which I always open first. They remain there alerting you to all the fabulous comments that are itching to be read. I know you have to look at gmail, but it could make your blogging much easier if comments(read and unread) are consolidated. Trust me, there are other techniques for dealing with the onslaught of comments etc. but this works for me. That way I can read a comment and know I haven't missed one from a previous post which sometimes gets forgotten. Just an idea...!
DeleteThanks for directions to your sibs place. I will play with Google Earth and streetview to zero in on the location. It's fun doing that. I had a nephew living in Melbourne a few years ago so I Google Earthed him. It was cool watching the planet rotate every time. Small things amuse!
Kelsey Raymond, lovely oil renderings on the halifaxfineart.com site
Oh yes, I have heard of him. Love his work. With the amount of artistic talent coursing through your parents lineage....no wonder you have the urge and desire. This is special yearning that needs to be realized. My Mom had this artistic talent although she didn't create anything monumental it had artistic and a pleasing quality. I know my interest and immediate reaction is because of her encouragement.
Well, I'm off to the city with Jimbo and Sophie...another rainy day...surprise! Have a great day and Hi to Terry!
ron
Hi Ron!
DeleteI guess I better open that gmail more! I did accidentally subscribe to my blog early on, but it hadn't clicked as to how helpful that could be! THANKS! I've been going back through my posts and blogs I follow multiple times because I don't want to miss something! I still have tons to learn about this blogging world!
"Uncle" Kelsey was my hero all my life. There's a family picture of me somewhere in the extended family of me as a toddler following him around with a fist of nails when he was building his house. I used to watch his paint shop for him when I was a kid. I spent many hours with him when he was painting. And he got me started on National Geographics. I spent many a rainy summer day in his shop curled up exploring the world through National Geographics. Kelsey painted the white house a number of times. If I'm remembering correctly, the last unfinished painting he was working on was one of the white house. Looking at it was a knife to the heart.
Now I'm off to go to the grocery store because a snow storm is coming! My friend Denise just told me. She was letting me know that she might not come to clean on Friday if the roads were still bad. Oops! I should probably pay more attention to the weather!
I 'subscribe' to any post I comment on, because it's just too exhausting to try and remember who and what I commented on. Once you receive answer and figure that's all you are going to need from that post then 'unsubscribe' from it (you don't have to but you'll get comments down the road that may just not be that important to scheme of things). Just a judgement call I guess!
DeleteOh you are so fortunate to experience "Uncle" Kelsey as a child. I'm sure just being around his influence must have triggered some artistic interests and also reading and looking at the pictures in all those NGs. Sorry about the "unfinished painting" aspect of remembering his near complete work. You had such a strong bond and remember this will never leave you...lucky you!
Ron
Wow Ron! I had no idea what that subscribe by email meant; actually I never really paid much attention to it because I thought it was for people to follow my blog by email. Duh! Well, maybe now I won't have to spend so much time combing through everything over and over! You're right, UK will never leave me! Thanks for the understanding words. And I went right to this comment without all the shenanigans I've been going through! Thank you so much! I usually find the hard way to do things! Have a good evening!
DeleteLouise! You're killing me here!
ReplyDeleteHow soothing this was on a very dark and dreary day in Nova Scotia. Freakin spectacular photos!
Hi Jim!
DeleteI'm so happy to know these flowers soothed you on a very dark and dreary day in Nova Scotia! I know those days so well! Just know that these are Nova Scotian hydrangeas ~ Smith's Cove hydrangeas no less ~ so happier, brighter days are ahead in beautiful N.S.
And thank you for the encouraging comment about my photos! Those words are branded in my heart because I've been fascinated with photography since I ~ well I can't remember a time I wasn't.
Have a brighter, sunnier day ~ today or soon. I should have asked Terry what the weather was in the Halifax area!