The rest of my early moring walk.

I will pick up at the pond from my last post, (cue the sound of geese).

I can see home in the distance so turning my back on the pond, I head for it. In a few weeks you will barely be able to see it from the main road (that is fine with us).
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.
There are what sounds like a couple hundred other birds flirting in the trees as I walk past. I could not even begin to guess how many kinds. They are apparently all camera shy this morning and will not let me get close enough to photograph. It reminds me of the mountain ladies from Morocco, I have several photos of their backs as they whirled away to keep me from taking their picture. These silly birds won't even let me take pictures of their backs.

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.

Remember the old rhyme:

March winds and Aprils Showers,

Bring forth Mays Flowers.

We are a little ahead of the game here. The best part is that even with all these signs of spring, it is still cool enough for a nice long snuggle in the morning.

What? Another Lady Bug?

Oh my, out he goes.

Cheers,

Kat

A great year!

2009 started out on the cold side. (2010 is doing the same) We did get snow in January, but not much. The Camilla's continued to bloom and Spontaneous spent lots of time rolling around on the floor in front of the fire. We do like to be cozy here.

February was cold, but here in the south we still had blossoms. My Sweet Hubby kept me warm and spoiled. Some of these photos are from blog posts, some are just my favorites.
March was a busy month, I wrote two of my favorite posts. Space cadet, after we visited NASA and Rosie & Ruth, a tribute to my Mom and Rosie the Riveter for Women's History month.
http://akatscorner.blogspot.com/2009/03/space-cadet.html

http://akatscorner.blogspot.com/2009/03/rosie-ruth-womens-history-month.html
Go ahead, if you haven' t read them yet, do it now. I am quite proud of them. (Yes that is me at the controls)
April brought blossoms, a very messy storm and more blossoms. Spontaneous, as usuall, just wants to play.

May was for walks in the woods, making digital art, good food and another of my best posts, "Obsession". http://akatscorner.blogspot.com/2009/05/obsession.html

In June our trusty Toyota Corolla passed it's 100,000Th mile. Still going strong, that little car takes us all over the place. The lighthouse at Hunting Island and Beaufort for instance. I love to travel with my Sweet Hubby!

I don't know if you have ever been here for a Southern Summer or not, but everyone is just looking for a way to keep cool. Spontaneous likes the tile in the kitchen when it is hot, look at all that fur! One cool spot in the July heat is Asheville NC for Belle Chere.

In August we went back out west for a couple of weeks. I got to goof off with my sisters (Me, Margaret & Paula, left to right), then we spent some time with the wild life in Yellowstone. I got some great photos there, the bottom left is a bear. The necklace is one of my creations. It is turquoise with animal fetishes. I finished it on this trip.

September was perfect camping season here, not to hot or to cold. Our trusty old van got to come out and play. The blue car in the bottom corner is a Ford Granada, almost the same as my first car. They are not around anymore and when I saw this one, I took plenty of photos. I used the photo in a post called "Art on Wheels". (bottom right is My Sweet Hubby and I)

October is one of my favorite months and this year was no exception. We went on yet another walk up in North Carolina and found a tiny amount of snow. Decorations went up for Halloween and this dolly was made for me by a friend at http://www.randomspyder.com/ , isn't she cute?

November saw the end of Jack, a good stack of wood in for the winter and some lovely leaf colors. Here at Kat's corner, the Christmas decorations usually go up around Thanksgiving. The story behind the plate is in a post called "The Grandparents".

The year has come full circle and we are back to December. This last grouping shows some of my favorite things about the holidays. We play board games and eat homemade caramel as well as lots of other lovely treats. My Sweet Hubby has me spoiled rotten! The little bear is one I made and the top right is our church from when we lived in Charleston.

Here is hoping that 2010 is just as good for us and all of you.

Kat

With thanks to Lyn at http://lyn-everydaylife.blogspot.com/2009/12/2009.html, for letting me use her great idea.

Deck the halls

I am attempting to join my first Blogging block party. It is "Deck the Halls" hosted by Dianne from http://www.thoughtsfromovertherainbow.blogspot.com/

She has several lovely ideas and links to bloggers with lots more. I attempted to do this last night, it didn't work, wish me luck.

I talked about how much my Mother and Mother in law influenced our Christmas decorations and traditions in the last post. Here are a few more examples. This lovely angel belonged to my Mother in Law.

These figurines go with my Mom's Christmas Village. I painted most of them for her when I was a teenager. She loved this set!

Here are some of the buildings that go with the same set. I painted all of these. Mom had a set up where the buildings fit on top of little lights so the houses twinkled. If you look closely you can see the windows are all cut out to allow light through. I light the lanterns, but not the houses.

Mother nature has been decking her halls too. We don't have any snow, but aren't these little red birds lovely?

This video is a little shaky, I was trying to get closer to the birds. They are very hard to photograph. If you have kitties, play this video for them. Spontaneous appreciates the bird song.

Instead of putting ornaments in a glass bowel, my Sweet Hubby decorates with home made caramels. MMM!

Each year, when we take down the tree, we cut part of the trunk off and save it for the next year. On Christmas morning, we will start a fire in the fireplace with this one.

Another one of Mother Nature's Southern traditions, Camellia's blooming for Christmas time. I have two big lovely bushes in my yard.

This picture with exterior decorations is from last year. In one of the next posts I will show you why we don't have them up yet this year. In the mean time, I love this picture so I decided to share it again. Yes, that is me up on the balcony.

Last of all, a tired little sweetheart. You can't decorate properly without the help of the cat.

Thanks to Cass, from http://cass-thatoldhouse.blogspot.com/2009/12/holiday-touches-old-and-new.html for giving me the idea to join the block party.