Saturated

 

Today I walked along the path that hugs the edge of our woods.  It’s a little mown trail with wild flowers and a few sneaky brambles. It’s a dividing line between  the laziness of the prairie grasses and the mysteries of the wood.

 

 

It’s May in Michigan and the promise of spring finally holds true.

A deep breath in confirms it.

 

 

The scent of wet soil, sunshine and wild cherry soar straight to my head. I can feel the sunshine in my feet as it warms the earth.  I close my eyes letting the life all around me seep in.

I take it in.  Warmth radiating in waves, spring breeze saturated with scent cooling my cheeks, my toes (free in their flip-flops) tickled by grasses, bird chattering, trilling and rejoicing.

 

 

Spring is here!

God’s glory everywhere- sensory exhilaration!

 

 

(May?!  It’s now June and everything around is changing into summer mode…. Oh well! LOL!)

Not Only Are the Bee’s Joyously Busy….

 

Well, I unintentionally took a bit of a blogging break over the past couple of weeks.  There is much happening here and the days have been packed full, blogging had to take a back seat. It actually was good to have one less thing on my to-do list. God is definitely showing me that it is okay to let go of the whole mindset that I must do this and that to keep everyone interested in my blog.  He has impressed upon me, and I know for a fact, that I will enjoy my blogging so much more if I don’t feel I must keep up on the high standards I tend to enforce on myself.

 

These past couple of weeks the weather decided to bring spring on full bore.  There has been a flurry of activity around here.  The garden finally got disked and my oldest worked up a small square for me to put in my cold crops (the rest of the garden is still too wet).  I got busy and  got my raspberry bed, grape vines, and blueberry bushes, and gooseberries weeded and mulched. I’ve been busily pulling out wild violets and crab grass out of my flower gardens, but they seem to multiply no matter how many I pull out.

 

 

Turkey season was a great success and extremely tasty, too.  Joel made kabobs with my youngest son’s turkey.  It was such a hit that my middle son requested the same meal with his turkey.  Joel also made up a couple of batches of turkey jerky for the boys to enjoy.  Last night we ate Joel’s turkey and I have enough left over to make several more meals out of it. 

If you are interested in making the kabobs here is a list of what you will need:

Wild Turkey Kabobs:

Turkey breast: 3-4lbs cut into 1 inch chunks

3 cans of whole potatoes

2 large green peppers

1 large red onion

1-2 pints of grape tomatoes

1 pint baby Bella mushrooms

Wooden or metal skewersi

Marinade:

Italian dressing

Worcestershire sauce

liquid smoke(just a couple of drops: optional)

season salt

freshly ground black pepper

I don’t have any amounts for these…. my man chef is a dump and pour until it looks good. So, if you make these just take your best guess and dump and pour until it looks good to you.

 

Place turkey in a shallow pan or bowl coat with marinade.  Put all your veges in a separate bowl and coat with marinade.  Place in refrigerator and let set for at least 4 hours.  An hour before you want to grill your kabobs, place your wooden skewers  into a shallow baking dish full of water and let them soak (this will prevent them from bursting into flames when you place them on the grill:)

Get your grill ready! ( We like charcoal and it is all we use now that our gas grill breathed its last flame.)

Now start building your kabobs.  Put your chunks of turkey onto your kabobs leaving a little bit of space between each chunk.  Then put all your veges onto separate sticks.  The cooking time for the turkey is longer than what you will want to cook your vegetables that is why we cook them separately. Put your turkey kabobs on the grill first. Grill the turkey chunks on the first side then turn over. When you turn the turkey  place on your vegetable kabobs on.  Finish grilling until meat is done (165 degrees) and vegetables are tender crisp.

 

 

The weather has been so gorgeous that I have been loading up the clothesline every. single. day.  I’m loving it.  All my curtains have been set free of their dust and spring cleaning has commenced.

 

 

And of course there has been a lot more opportunity to take photos of the earth awakening after a long winter and of  a little girl who can’t seem to get enough of all this sunshine!

 

 

Happy, happy, SPRING!

Just for a Moment

It’s almost 60 degrees out this morning.  The windows in our house are open wide, letting in sweet spring.  The birds melodious notes are floating on the cool breeze and the froggies down at the pond are chirping to their mates.  It’s glorious!

I yearn to hang out multiple loads of laundry, but there’s an undulating rain heading our way (again).  My oldest son pointed, dejectedly to the computer screen to show me a huge bunch of green with turquoise bands of snow behind it.  In his next breath he stated with much remorse that  he wouldn’t get to enjoy this brief taste of spring because he had to do school.  I glanced at him and said, “Go! You have an hour to enjoy this!” 

In a flash all four of them scurried out the door.

 

 

We’ll do school later.

 

 

 

 

Spring seems long coming this year.  We disked the garden and then it rained.  Actually more like poured.  It has done that off and on for two weeks.  There has been no gardening activity since.  I long to get my lettuce, spinach, radishes, turnips, and kohlrabi into the ground, but that’s just not going to happen any time soon.  So, I garden on an old card table set in front of our sliding glass doors.  It will suffice for now!

 

 

 

 

Such anticipation I have for long warm days when I can sink my fingers into sun warmed dirt, sit back on my heels and be shown again and again how Awesome my God is!

Until then I will praise Him for the beauty that is shown in His creation even on these in between days!

 

 

An Itty Bit of Spring

 

 

 

 

Yesterday evening, right before dusk, I was blessed with a few free minutes.  I grabbed my camera and headed out the door.  The wind was coming in chilly gusts and the conditions weren’t perfect for trying to capture nature in photos.  I spent a lot of time waiting between gusts.  Focusing was difficult  with everything moving, but I had seen the Pussy Willows from my kitchen window earlier in the day.  I wanted to capture them as the sun went down.  I spent about 45 minutes outside a good portion of that just waiting for the right moment.

By the time I got back inside my toes were going numb, my fingers were stiff, and my nose was running, but it was well worth it!

 

 

 

 

Linked up:

I used Kim’s textures KK_minus43 and KK_1402magic for this photo.

 

Scavenger Hunt~ 05/20

This weeks items: Rainbow, Fluffy, Letters, Metal, Tree(s)

I hunted in a rush this week and so I’m not totally thrilled with the quality of some of my photos this week. Ahhh, well this is what I’ve got!

 

Rainbow

There was not even the slightest hint of getting a real rainbow for this prompt, so I settled for the rainbow created from the prism hanging in my kitchen window.

 

Fluffy

One of our baby rabbits.

 

Letters

 

Metal

 

Tree(s)

Linked up with Ashley:

Scavenger Hunt~ 05/13

This weeks items:  Sidewalk, Inspiring, Time, Close up, With mirror

Sidewalk

Sidewalk chalk in your pj’s what could be better!

Inspiring

This time of year is full of inspiration….love it!

Linked up with Misty and Kim:

Time

spring time=chicks

Linked up with:

Close Up

With Mirror

Linked up with Ashley:

Linked up with:

A Little Birdy

Last Friday I took a bit of time out of our busy day to stop at a park that is near our home.  We have been to this park many times, but I never have my camera with me.  Each time I drive by I tell myself that one day I will stop with my camera.

Friday was the day!

It was perfect. The day was overcast, but pleasant. Perfect for the pictures I had in mind.

It turned out to be way more fun than I had imagined.

 

Thankfully I had taken some bread along with us, because these goobers were ultra “friendly”.  I had the boys tossing pieces of bread and kept reminding them to watch my backside! I seriously did not want to be goosed! Several times my youngest son and I had to make a run for it.  They seemed to have preplanned moves.  They would come at us in almost a “u” shape and we would try to back up tossing bread as we went and then we would take off running and laughing our fool heads off.

It was all good until we ran out of bread…then we had to boogey out of there.  It is amazingly difficult to run when you are laughing so hard. I’m pretty sure the boys would have ran faster if their ole’ ma hadn’t been lagging behind!

 

Linked up with:

My boys were so patient with me as I took hundreds of pictures.

 

 

And then I got the ultimate reward when I found the geese and their babies.

 

 

It was a perfect hour and I can’t wait to go back.  This time with a picnic lunch and a lot more bread!

Scavenger Hunt~ 04/22/12

This weeks items:  Yellow, Something that makes me smile, Ancient or Antique, Splash, In the sun

 

Yellow

Macro shot of a Dandelion

 

 

Something That Makes Me Smile

Going on a photo walk with my favorite little girl makes me smile! She loves using my old point and shoot camera. And I love that she enjoys taking photos and finding beauty in nature, just like her momma!

 

Antique

My daughter loves these Holly Hobby dolls. My sister and I had these very same dolls when we were growing up. I was ecstatic when my M-I-L found these dolls to give to my daughter.

 

 

Splash

My faucet set to dripping and a blue plate placed in the bottom of my kitchen sink created this splash shot.

 

 

In the Sun

I took a bit of time one afternoon this week to take some photos of the flowers in my garden. These Forget-Me-Nots had there pretty little faces turned up towards the sun. I love these little plants! The flowers are small and dainty, just a bit more than 1/8th of an inch, but they pack a punch in the color department.

 

 

Linked up with Ashley Sisk

Scavenger Hunt~ 04/15

This weeks items: Simple, Grain, Transportation, Stitch, Bubble(s)

Simple

A simple spring photo of a crabapple tree.

 

 

Grain

This shot did not turn out exactly as I wanted, but since I was short on time, I couldn’t re-shoot.  So, this is what I got for this week…grains of sand.

 

 

Transportation

This bee is in the business of transporting pollen.

 

 

 

Stitch

 

 

Bubble(s)

 

 

 

Linked up with Ashley for Scavenger Hunt Sunday