Join me as I raise a very happy glass of champs to all moms and May birthday girls.
I’m grateful that I had a mom who not only taught me to appreciate Chanel, beautiful flowers and diamonds, how to bake the world’s best cinnamon rolls and apple pie, but also how to make a bed with hospital corners, debride a wound, and nurse a sick loved one back to health. It’s all about balance, teehee. Miss you, Mommy!
The love of and for moms.
This photo is my definition of motherhood; five goslings closely following mom (and dad), learning to eat and swim. And survive.
For me, that’s part of what makes a good mom; unconditional and protective love combined with teaching essential life skills.
In my case, I was often referred to as the “smother mother“, but it’s a label I wear with pride. I’m not a helicopter mom, but even better…I’m (still) a DRONE mom. I’m the same with the grandkids; laser-focused on them at all times.
Every seven years, my birthday falls on Mother’s Day. As my mom often said, I was the perfect Mother’s Day gift for her, and as my son tells me, I wouldn’t have anything to celebrate without HIM, so he’s the one who actually deserves the gifts and accolades. He’s a funny guy.
In my opinion, tomorrow’s the perfect enchanted day to double my joy and celebrate ME. .
Last year I attended the first ever North County Monarch Butterfly Festival. I’m glad to learn that it’s coming back again this Mother’s Day weekend.
The Festival highlights all aspects of the Monarch universe, from monarch-inspired arts and crafts to jewelry, clothing, biology, pollinator gardening, milkweed and nectar plant propagation and cultivating. Join discussions and presentations on a wide range of subjects, such as conservation and butterfly migration, habitat restoration and creation; talks on diseases and predators to gardening with native plants. It’s a great event for families with children’s activities and seed exchanges. (Event link below.)
In my garden, I thought my milkweed plants had died, but they miraculously returned and are doing well.
Planting milkweed is one of the easiest ways that each of us can make a difference for the Monarch. There are more than one hundred species of this wildflower native to North America. Here are just a dozen:
Find the rest of the info at this amazing site: http://butterfly-lady.com/twelve-native-milkweeds/?
Here’s the event link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-second-annual-north-county-monarch-butterfly-festival-tickets-579540440057
This Bush Poppy (Dendromecon rigida) is a California native shrub. It’s a tough and beautiful plant but only if planted in the right conditions. The Bush Poppy thrives on rocky clay slopes with excellent draining. If planted in sandier soils, it can handle supplementary water up to once a month. Prefers full sun. Flowers are beautiful, as are the long, thin, blue-green leaves.
Look at this lemony yellow azalea. I didn’t even know they came in yellow until I used the info app on my phone to identify this gorgeous girl. I think it’s actually called Rhododendron ‘Lemon Lights’.
My phone is too full of photos so I’ve done a complete Marie Kondo: delete, delete, delete. These are some great ones I thought I’d share before they’re gone forever…
You can’t see them, but I DID. Eight, yes EIGHT orca whales! Leaping and breaching, one right after the other; this experience was beyond magnificent. They were close to the boats that you CAN see, and yes, I was totally freaking out. It was my first sighting. Magical doesn’t even begin to describe the feeling because for me, it was as meaningful as the day I saw wolves in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley. Joy filled all the spaces of my heart, but the moment was also tinged with sadness because I know there are still some killer whales in captivity and that is so, so very wrong.
Sand or gravel barge with push tug? I’m not sure.
Another big boat…
Snow on the Olympic Mountains!
Now the photos are gone, but in my heart and mind, they will live forever. Time to replace them with new memories.
May the shells on the beach remind you that treasures arrive every day in the form of simple things.
“The moon, like a flower in heaven’s high bower, with silent delight sits and smiles on the night.”
William Blake
It’s been raining in SoCal, and if you have clear skies tonight in your area, take a look at the stars next to the moon. One of them is Alpha Librae, also known as Zubenelgenubi. This star is quite special: if you have eagle eyes or use binoculars, you’ll see it as two stars. That’s no optical illusion as Alpha Librae is, in fact, a double star. To learn more, visit the Sky Tonight app.
As a special bonus, a penumbral lunar eclipse is taking place, too!
Don’t forget to charge your crystals and a jar of moon water!
Not a super great photo of the moon; but I discovered some spectacular tulips and lilacs on my walk.
Just like this happy purple pansy I found glowing and growing in a sidewalk crack.
Against all odds, alive and thriving…
(Did you know that pansy came from the French word “pensee …remembrance or thought?)
Another musical legend gone too soon, Gordon Lightfoot charmed us with his beautiful, evocative voice. Bob Dylan once said that when he hears a Gordon Lightfoot song, he wishes it could go on forever.
These are a few of my favorites.
I love this live version.
This is the last day of April. Tomorrow we celebrate Beltane and May Day, and while we can weave flowers in our hair and dance around the maypole, it’s also also called Workers’ Day or International Workers’ Day, to commemorate the struggles and gains made by workers and the labor movement.
May Day is a far cry away from the international call of distress, mayday. I always wondered where that term emanated from. For some reason, SOS didn’t work, so it seems as if mayday was attributed to Frederick Stanley Mockford, a senior radio officer in the RAF. In 1927, the United States formally adopted it as an official radiotelegraph distress signal, explaining that mayday corresponds “to the French pronunciation of the expression m’aider.” It’s simple meaning in English is “help me.”
Beltane is a Celtic annual festival to signify the return of the light.
Whether you light bonfires, decorate your homes with May flowers, or make May bushes, have a Happy Beltane and May Day!
In May
Yes, I will spend the livelong day
With Nature in this month of May;
And sit beneath the trees, and share
My bread with birds whose homes are there;
While cows lie down to eat, and sheep
Stand to their necks in grass so deep;
While birds do sing with all their might,
As though they felt the earth in flight.
This is the hour I dreamed of, when
I sat surrounded by poor men;
And thought of how the Arab sat
Alone at evening, gazing at
The stars that bubbled in clear skies;
And of young dreamers, when their eyes
Enjoyed methought a precious boon
In the adventures of the Moon
Whose light, behind the Clouds’ dark bars,
Searched for her stolen flocks of stars.
When I, hemmed in by wrecks of men,
Thought of some lonely cottage then
Full of sweet books; and miles of sea,
With passing ships, in front of me;
And having, on the other hand,
A flowery, green, bird-singing land.
William Henry Davies 1871–1940
Enchanted Seashells by Princess Rosebud 