Around our Home -- Early Spring 2019

Our Home and some of our Flowers--April 6, 2019

Good Morning,  Family and Friends.   How is your April going so far????  We are finally getting some spring weather here --and it feels wonderful.  After a long winter ---feeling, smelling, enjoying Spring is good for the SOUL.

Today --let's just take a walk around our yard...  Hope you enjoy it!!!!!

Visitors in the backyard!!!!! "Stay away from our tulips,  Pretty Little Deer!!"

The Tulips on the lower front yard beds;  George is getting 'up close and personal' with the new tulips.  (4/6/19)

Here is an interesting Tulip in our yard.   This little beauty looks different from the others since he/she is a DOUBLE TULIP (with many more petals).   Pretty, huh?

PURPLE FINCHES at our feeders (We've had a few of these beautiful birds in past --but now,  we have a bunch of them.)

Such a pretty Tulip!!!!

Pretty Hot Pink Tulip

Same tulip as the one above --after it gets some sunshine and opens up!!!

Deer eating leaves off of one of the bushes on the empty lot next door!!!!  (By the way,  the deer managed to eat a bunch of the leaves on our Azaleas in the front yard sometime during winter.  First time they have ever done that!)

Gorgeous Yellow Tulips;   Yellow has always been a favorite Summer Color of mine.

Male and Female Purple Finches;  I didn't recognize the females at first --and had to search for the name.

Our front yard and home (4/6/19)....  Lots of green grass;  See one of our Red Buds in bloom on the right side of our home?  

Standing under one of our Red Buds and looking up!!!!!  I love the Red Bud blooms!

Red and Yellow Tulip

Who is looking at ME??????  Such beautiful animals --and they "LOOK" so innocent!!!!! ha

Orange and Yellow Tulip;   One way we are keeping the Deer away from our Tulips (SO FAR) is by surrounding the plants with Daffodils.  Deer do NOT touch or go near Daffodils... 

Purple Finches love the plate feeder!!!!  Look at the females.  They remind me of the female Grosbeaks with the big white eyebrow.  However,  they are much smaller than the Grosbeaks!!!!

One last picture of the Yellow Tulips --after they open up...  Love the red addition!!!!

One last picture of our home and yard --taken on April 6, 2019;   You'll notice that we still do NOT have any leaves on the big trees here yet.... SO--in some ways,  it still looks like winter!!!!!!   Even though our winter was warmer and much wetter than normal,  March turned out to be COLDER than February!!!!   We are just now finally getting some real Spring warm weather....  IF this continues,  we'll have leaves on the trees  fairly soon.

Hope you have enjoyed the walk in and around our yard today...  You actually got a little exercise!!!!!!! ha ha.....  Have a great week!!!!

Hugs,

Emoticons

SPRING has SPRUNG in TENNESSEE (maybe)

Some of the different varieties of Daffodils growing in our yard this year (3/18/19);   The cold, freezing weather  sends the blooms to the ground --so George picks them and I put them in a vase and enjoy them inside....  Works WELL!!!

Hello Friends and Family!   Welcome to a little Spring here in Tennessee  (WELL--so far!!! ha).    As many of you know,  I LOVE weather statistics and following the weather.  This past Fall and Winter  were totally CRAZY here.   We had a very late Fall with warm weather staying until November.

When we finally did get some colder weather,  the leaves turned and we did have a few days of pretty Fall Color here in November (VERY FEW)..   That caused us to be outside raking and blowing leaves  through Thanksgiving and Christmas!!!!!   We finally got some professional help getting the bulk of our leaves up--but that was in January!!!   NUTTY!

After such a weird Fall,   we kept wondering what our Winter would look like.   Guess what?  It was equally as crazy as Fall had been.  We had   NO SNOW at all (other than one teeny morning snow in December which disappeared in an hour) --and having no snow was a 'first' and a huge disappointment to a snow-lover like me, since we moved here in 2003....   SAD!

What we did get were warm temperatures and an over-abundance of RAIN and Flooding (all over East TN) in  January and February.  Luckily,  we live 2000 feet UP in elevation here on the Cumberland Plateau, so no flooding here.  BUT--it was sad to watch so many areas in Tennessee having HORRIBLE flooding and so much damage.

The poor Spring Flowers had no idea what was going on  --so they started coming up EARLY,  especially the Daffodils.    When March got here,   we finally did get some COLD weather.   It was not horribly cold the first 3 weeks of March --but cold enough (below freezing) to kill many of our pretty Daffodils this year....  That was a first for us too since we moved here and planted Daffodils.   They are usually very hardy flowers --but  couldn't get through our COLD MARCH without damage.

I heard last night that MARCH has been a colder month than FEBRUARY.....   It's no wonder our poor flowers don't know what to do!!!!!   As the old saying goes:  "Welcome to Tennessee.  IF you don't like the weather one day,  just wait --and it will change quickly"!!!!!! ha ha

NOW---back to Spring!!!!!!   Throughout the past month --we have been watching our flowers grow --and taking pictures throughout the month!   SO---believe it or not,  I do have some pretty pictures to share today thanks to the perseverance of these early spring beauties... I hope you enjoy them!!!!

Pretty Little  CROCUSES  (2/27/19);  These are usually the first to bloom--but the Daffodils beat them this year.

The first groups of Spring Flowers to bloom  EARLY this year were some of the DAFFODILS.   They were so pretty until the March Freezing Weather zapped them...  (2/17/19)

HYACINTHS  (3/12/19);   The cold March weather hurt our Hyacinths a lot this year --but I managed to get this one picture of this little patch. 

I love this little batch of CROCUSES  (3/12/19) 

First Tulip bloomed on 3/17/19

The little Tulip Bed (3/20/19);   NOTE:  There WERE some new Daffodils on either side of the Tulips  --but the freezing temperatures killed them this year!   You can see some of the older Daffodils in the bed above --that are now on the ground due to damage from the recent freezes.

A picture of the entire bed (3/20/19);   In the Summer,  this is our Rose and Day Lily and Iris bed --but in the Spring,  it is our Daffodil and Tulip Bed!!!!

Beautiful Red Tulip  (3/20/19)

Three little Tulips ---all in a row!!!!!!  (3/23/19)

Little Daffodils  3/20/19;   We always call these little guys "Dad Adams"  Daffodils since George's Daddy gave them to us many years ago.

A close-up of one of the different varieties of Daffodils we have  (3/20/19)

Another variety of Daffodils in our yard  (3/20/19)

Periwinkle is one of our Ground Covers.   In Spring we enjoy their pretty little blue flowers.  (3/20/19)

Anyone want some pretty PINK Tulips?????  This little bed through the years has given us some pretty flowers  (pansies,  petunias, vinca,  etc.).. Picture taken 3/23/19;

One of our newest set of Tulips (3/23/19);  Love the colors!!!

Another view of this pretty Tulip  (3/23/19)

Here's one more view of the Tulip Bed  (3/23/19)

WELL--compared with most years,  on this date, March 25,  Early Spring has been very different. BUT---after the crazy Fall and Winter ---we're happy just to have any spring much at all so far....  IF we can now get some warmer weather in April,  maybe everything will start to 'green' up a bit and the big trees will get some leaves on them!!!!!!!

Hope you are having a good March---and hopefully there will be a better April for  all of us.

Hugs,

Emoticons