Hollyhock Dolls

When I was a little girl, many of our neighbors grew Hollyhocks around their homes. My next door neighbor grew pink ones and red ones close to her kitchen door. She grew many other beautiful plants, too, but I remember this one in particular, because she showed me how to make dolls out of them.

My Victorian grandmother once told me, that when she was a child, she didn't have many toys to play with so she and her siblings would make 'hollyhock dolls'--I've always loved them since. I think I"ll grow some hollyhocks for myself this summer.

I don't have a picture of a 'hollyhock doll' of my own, so I'm including one I found on the Internet. Isn't it sweet?

***Have you ever made 'hollyhock dolls' or had any experience with them?

Spring Is Popping Out All Over

The signs of spring are everywhere! Golden daffodils, tulips, irises,
and the cherry plum tree are in full bloom. Our dogwoods and lilacs have buds that will open in a couple of weeks.

Robins and mourning doves perch in the nearby trees, and along with scores of Western Wild Canaries, come to our feeder. Yesterday we had our first sighting of a hummingbird.

The bird feeder hangs from a tree limb about 30 feet from our sliding glass door, so Jim and I have a perfect view of the Canaries and a variety of other birds as they feed, almost constantly, throughout the day. We feel as though we are living in a wildlife preserve and loving every minute of it.

We are also privileged to have squirrels gather below the feeder to pick up the sunflower seeds the birds have rummaged through and that have fallen to the ground.

What a wonderful time of year, full of life and the promise of continuity.

***What special thing have you observed in your yard today?

Feeling The Joy Of Spring

Can't you feel the joy of spring in these lines of Shelley's poetry......

The joy, the triumph, the delight, the madness,

The boundless, overflowing bursting gladness,

The vaporous exaltation not to be confined!

Ha! Ha! the animation of delight

Which wraps me, like an atmosphere of light

And bears me as a cloud is borne by its own wind.

(Prometheus Unbound, IV, 319-324)

I Meant To Do My Work Today

I Meant To Do My Work Today

by- Richard Le Gallienne

I meant to do my work today,

But a brown bird sang in the apple tree,

And a butterfly flitted across the field,

And all the leaves were calling me.
And the wind went sighing over the land,

Tossing the grasses to and fro,

And a rainbow held out its shining hand--

So what could I do but laugh and go?