We have company from colder climes so we decided to go looking for some springtime.
I like to get up close and personal with my flowers. This lovely Forsythia is blooming by my front porch right now.
The darker yellow flowers toward the back are what is left of the first wave of Daffodils. Now these are blooming bright.
Poor Kitty had to go to the vet. She had an awful gum infection and she ended up having to have several of her teeth pulled. When she first got home, she went to sleep. This morning, she got up and started investigating everything.
Sniff, Sniff,
This might be what she was looking for. The fridge.
Let me in.
I am not moving from this spot until someone feeds the cat.
Feed me.
Now!
As you can see, her appetite is fine. Then she found a lap.
Isn't that sweet?
While she is snoozing, I wanted to show you what I found growing across the road from our driveway. Spontaneous will be fine, but if you have a kitty, check her teeth and mouth, she was a sore little sweetheart. 
It is a busy week and I have lots of homework. 
I will pick up at the pond from my last post, (cue the sound of geese).
This picture is a close up of our big elm. It gets these lacy little buds before the leaves come in. How pretty is that? I think spring is saying, hang on, I'm coming.
Excuse me for just a minute, I need to put a lady bug outside.
O.K. where was I, oh yeah, by lunch time, the sky on one side was as blue as could be, on the other side, it looked like trouble coming. My Sweet Hubby and I decided to head out for our walk a little early. This picture was taken shortly after we left the house. I love the details in the clouds, see how they look like they are mirroring the shape of the frame?
More clouds, so many shades of blue. This looks like a meadow, it is a field of baby pine trees. This particular batch is a couple of years old and a few are nearly three feet high. I love watching the cycle of all of this, not just in seasons, but in years and hopefully, decades.
The clouds started to look a bit more threatening so at this point, I put away my camera and we headed back to the house. 
Excuse me, I need to go put another lady bug outside.
Nope, that is not snow. My camera actually managed to catch the raindrops. They were coming down so hard! My Sweet Hubby and I timed it just right, we felt a drop or two as we got to the yard, but that was it. We have had so much rain lately, our yard is saturated. 
OK, here is another one, I wonder what these guys got into that causes the white specks? Oh well, out he goes.
It is hard to justify complaining about the rain when it results in things like this. The tiny flowers in the center are on the biggest of my rosemary plants. This is the first time it has bloomed!
Camellias from the side porch, after the storm.
What? Another Lady Bug?
I have been playing with colored pencils. I quite like this one. It is from a walk in the woods up on the blue ridge. The photo it is taken from is currently the background on my computer. Hope your having a lovely day.
Kat
I was taking pictures of Volkswagens yesterday and I almost stepped on these. A sure sign of spring. They are a lovely little surprise. Perhaps I should plant a few in my yard for next year.
Another sign of spring, the ladybugs are waking up. Did you know that they like to hibernate in big old southern houses? We see one or two at a time throughout the winter but in the spring, they wake up and need to be escorted gently back outside.
We planted this Daphne a few years back. It is a very slow grower. This is the first time we have had more than one or two blossoms on it. It lost most of it's leaves in the ice storm a few weeks ago but it is blooming anyway and if you look closely you can see that the leaves are starting to grow back. When ever we have owned a house that is important to us, we have planted one next to the front door so that visitors will be greeted by the lovely fragrance.
With all these signs of spring, I wanted to take just a minute to appreciate the last of winter a little more before it is gone. I will miss natures lace, the dark, bare tree limbs against the sky are so graceful. 
See the van, it shows the scale of these wonderful trees. You can really see their graceful forms. They will be beautiful when they are covered in leaves, but it is a different kind of beauty. This seems so very peaceful.
Walking to the mailbox. Our mailbox is out on the main road. I love the walk no matter what the season. Right now you can hear several different kinds of birds singing and off in the distance, on the left hand side of the path, that little black spot is a feral kitty. We think she may have babies near by. She is all black and very shy. This is a good place for ferals to live.
On the wing, we see these guys a lot. It is rare that one flys close enough for me to capture it digitally. I wonder if it is easier for them to hunt when the leaves are not out yet?
These tiny guys like to hide when I pull the camera out. I love to listen to them sing. I took this on the way home from our walk the other day. Notice the pink sky? I am surrounded by beauty!
The sun is setting and it casts a pink reflection on the front of the house. I just can't help wanting to take more pictures. Winter is chilly, and I miss the green, but it has it's own charm. I will enjoy spring, it is one of my favorite times of the year, but I will miss winter. Thank goodness snuggle season isn't over yet.
I leave you for now with that sunset I was just telling you about. If you stand on my front porch and look off to the left, this is what you will see. Hope you like the view.
This is the picture that started it all. You see, last spring, we had a record breaking hail storm. The storm also knocked down several trees. There was so much damage in the area that the Red Cross came in. My poor little pickup had more than twenty dings on the cab alone and my Sweet Hubby's car was in worse shape. We figured we were lucky.
This picture, I call it "Peace" was on the top of the side bar of my blog for a long time. I love our old barn and this is such a peaceful atmospheric picture of it. We compared the two pictures. Peace was taken well before the storm and when you compare the roof, you can see the damage.
This is the back view of our smoke house. When we checked, we discovered the roof on it and the summer kitchen were also damaged.
You may have seen this picture before, I posted it in the autumn. I love it!, the damage is there, but hidden by the leaves. The roofing companies were busy all summer repairing roofs on houses. (Our house roof is fine, no leaks). So we had to wait for them to come to us. One thing these pictures don't show well is the sheer size of the barn. It is a two story barn and it is huge. We don't know how old it is but from the inside you can see many of the most support beams are "Rough Hewn" (there have been repairs over the years) and the old hand made nails were used, just like in the house.
Remember this one? The Summer kitchen does not look very summery here. My understanding is that the summer kitchen was used for cooking in the summer to keep the heat out of the house. Remember, back then they did not have central air and it gets hot here in the summer.
This is a close up of the barn with snow on it. I can imagine the animals that used to live here. This was once the heart of a working plantation and the barn may be original. It is hard to imagine when you look at all the trees, but they raised cotton here.
The smoke house with it's proud new roof. These buildings were all here when we arrived and are original to the place.
The summer kitchen with it's new roof. I love the way you can see how these buildings were constructed. It gives clues to the parts of the house you can't see. Notice the summer kitchen has a raised foundation and floor, the smokehouse has a dirt floor.
The barn looks quite proud with it's new roof. I was a little worried that a new roof would look out of place on an old barn, but my Sweet Hubby picked just the right materials. 
From a distance with my Daffs in the foreground. This was taken Sunday. Today it is snowing again. Two snow storms in one year is a lot here. That is fine with me, the fire is crackling behind me and none of us have to go anywhere. 
My Sweet Hubby stepped outside after I went to work yesterday and took this one for me. He did not want me to miss it. Isn't it the prettiest view? 
