Tag Archives: flowers

It’s May Day!

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FYI, parts of this post is from previous May Days.

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In first grade, my teacher Mrs. Iverson showed us how to make May Day baskets from pink and yellow construction paper. We drew ivy and flowers on the paper baskets with our thick crayons before going up one-by-one to our teacher’s desk to get the handle stapled on.

On the way home from school, we walked together picking dandelions and soft lavender-colored clover to fill our baskets. The more daring kids picked pansies or snap dragons from a neighbor’s yard to add to their construction paper baskets.

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We took turns “May Daying” the neighbors.

I climbed the steps to Mrs. Fixie’s front door. She was the grandmotherly lady with the neat white bun on top of her head who often gave me home-made oatmeal cookies.

I hung the basket on her doorknob. Then, I rang her doorbell and ran as far as my first-grade legs would take me. I hid behind a hedge and watched her open the front door and scan the neighborhood.

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Then, she looked at her doorknob at the paper basket filled with flowering weeds.  A big smile broke across her face.

“Happy May Day!” I yelled jumping up behind the shrubs.

Bougainvillea in Palm Springs
Bougainvillea.

Where did this fun tradition begin? But, more importantly, where did it go?

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Did your kids make May Day baskets in school? Did they surprise your elderly neighbors with baskets of flowers and sunshine on May 1st? Mine did not.

When my mom was in an assisted living home three states away, I always ordered her a basket of flowers on May Day. The card read “Happy May Day! Love, ???”

She’d call to thank me and I’d say, “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about!”

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“Really? I could have sworn it was you! I wonder who sent me these flowers?” she’d answer.

That’s how we’ve kept our May Day tradition alive. My son sometimes remembers to text me flower emojis to wish me “Happy May Day.” While my daughter was home, she’d pick bougainvillea, snap dragons and roses from our back yard and pound on the door after school and her swim meet.

I’d run outside and won’t be able to contain the smile on my face as I race around the yard trying to catch her.

In our empty nest, my husband usually remembers to buy flowers, leaves them on the front porch, rings the doorbell and runs away.

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Happy May Day, everyone!

How do you celebrate May Day? Or, have you ever celebrated it?

A special time of year

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The past week, cacti bloomed. The beauty is fleeting, because the flowers only last a day or two.

This beauty is next to our driveway. Leaving for a walk, my husband and I stopped to admire it. He said, “I feel so much pride in this cactus, which is funny, because I had nothing to do with it.” I felt the same way, proud of our blooming plant.

This was our cactus two days after the photo taken above.

I believe in God, only I spell it Nature. —Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright made his home in our desert. He appreciated the beauty surrounding us. I’ve visited Frank Lloyd Wright’s desert home and school called Taliesin West. I wrote about my visit HERE.

From Wikipedia:

Wright believed Scottsdale to be the perfect spot for such a building: a place of residence, a place of business and a place to learn. Wright described it like this, “Finally I learned of a site twenty-six miles from Phoenix, across the desert of the vast Paradise Valley. On up to a great mesa in the mountains. On the mesa just below McDowell Peak we stopped, turned, and looked around. The top of the world.”

More photos of cacti blooms from our neighborhood:

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”

—Albert Einstein

I feel like a kid in a candy store. I see everything around me with fresh eyes although this is my fourth Spring here. I’m in awe and surprised by the prickly cacti producing such eye catching flowers.

If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.

—Laura Ingalls Wilder

What are your favorite sights this time of year?

Happy Fourth!

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We went to a Fourth of July pool party on Sunday, so today will be a quiet day, me and hubby, going for a walk and grilling burgers.

I spotted two interesting sights during my last walk.

First was this lovely pink blossom in one of our pots in our courtyard. Because our temperatures are well over 100 degrees, most of the blooms have faded away.

Then I saw two desert kingsnakes. They aren’t venomous and they eat rattlesnakes, so I guess that’s a good thing they’re hanging around our neighborhood.

I hope you all have a Happy Fourth of July!

What are your plans today?

Saguaros in bloom

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This year is fascinating with all the blooming cacti and plants. This is my third spring in Arizona and it’s truly amazing. I’m sure it was the rainy winter we had that is encouraging all the plant life to come alive with flowers. Right now the saguaros are blooming, something I didn’t see much of the past two years.

We have a nature’s preserve across the street and it’s gorgeous to see saguaros topped with white flower crowns. They remind me of the floral crowns we swim moms ordered for my senior day for my daughter’s college swim team.

Saguaros topped with white crowns of flowers at the McDowell Sonoran Preserve.

A saguaro in bloom at a neighbor’s house.

In our back yard.

What unusual plants, flowers or wildlife have you seen this spring? Did you have more rain or snow than in the past few years?

A New View: Changing My Outlook

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My new view while I work. This is the courtyard at the entrance to our house.

We are having houseguests for six nights beginning this weekend. My friend who moved from my Palm Springs neighborhood to less than a mile from us in Arizona is having a birthday party. She has four children who went to the same school with my two kids — K through high school. Although none of our kids were in the same class, they were like stepping stones, my two fitting neatly between her four.

These days there are a few spouses involved and she doesn’t have room for everyone — so I offered our two empty bedrooms. She took me up on it. I decided to get started de-catifying and cleaning Wednesday and not wait until a few hours before they arrive.

My refuge and work space is in our casita. Although I set up an office for myself in what was supposed to be the formal dining room, I’ve never used it — except the bookcase and to file paperwork. I have never sat at my desk and worked.

We knew right away that we didn’t need a formal dining room. We’ve never had one. I didn’t have one growing up, either. We’ve always had a table off the kitchen. We aren’t formal dining folks.

This is our dining room table and chairs that we moved from Palm Springs. I love the tree stump base. We acquired the table in the early 1990s when we bought our Palm Springs home. The prior owners of that house left it and it’s been our dining room table ever since.

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My husband works remotely and he is on the phone all day long — and he’s LOUD. The formal dining room/office is too close to his office and I can’t focus.

I found a work around. Headphones. I’m sitting at my desk in my office with headphones on listening to music and podcasts in the background as I write. It’s working.

It felt like moving again to get all my stuff out of the casita. I can’t believe what I squirreled away including snacks, books and papers.

At first I felt out of sorts working at my real desk, but I’ve decided it gives me a new outlook. A new perspective to my day. There’s also no sofa and TV to tempt me.

What is your work space like? Where is your favorite place to write and read?

The end of tradition?

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Some of the pots of flowers I planted each year at our old house.

This is the first year I didn’t send flowers to my mom for May Day. It was a touching tradition that began when I was in first grade at Emerson School a block away from our house in Snohomish, Wash. Mom died earlier this year, so May Day brought fond memories, but also regret that I wasn’t ordering a bouquet with a card that said “Happy May Day, from ???”

Mrs. Iverson, my first grade teacher, had us make construction paper baskets and color them. She’d staple on the handles before the bell rang. On our walk home, the neighborhood kids would pick wild flowers or flowers from yards to fill our little May Day baskets.

When we got home, or stop at a neighbor’s house that we’d want to “May Day,” we’d hang the basket of flowers on their doorknob, ring the bell, run for it and hide. We’d watch behind a fence or bush at the surprised mom or lucky neighbor.

I wrote about that tradition HERE.

When I left for college, I always sent Mom a card for May Day. Later on when we could afford it, I ordered flowers.

“I got the most beautiful bouquet of flowers,” Mom would call and say. “Thank you!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. It wasn’t me,” I’d answer.

“I wonder who it was?” she’d reply.

When my kids were little, I showed them how to make the baskets and they’d fill them with flowers from our yard. They loved to hang them on our door knob, knock on the door and hide. After they left for college and moved on with their lives, my husband picked up the slack.

Monday was May Day and he got busy with work and forgot — in spite of my daughter texting him the night before to make sure I got flowers. He left a few minutes ago for a mysterious errand, so we shall see.

I do have one special friend who remembered. She sent me a Happy May Day text.

Did you celebrate May Day as a child?

What are family traditions that you’d like to keep alive? What ones have faded away?

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P.S.. I heard the doorbell ring. Couldn’t find anything. Hubby was inside peering out the window. “Maybe it was UPS?” Later found this inside the house.

Spring is in the air

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Sitting in our backyard, I’ve noticed a change. Flowers are beginning to bloom!

Leaves are beginning to sprout on once bare branches. Color catches my eye as I rest in the backyard, enjoying the sun and soft breeze.

Springs is officially here. Time to get rid of the styrofoam cups protecting our cacti from freezing.

Here are a few photos of flowers in my backyard:

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honeysuckle

I love the honeysuckle climbing our wall.

I used my plant app and it said this is an aloe vera. It’s wrong about 50% of the time, so I’m not sure.

I’m working on identifying the flowers and plants, but I had very little luck! I have a wildflower guide from the McDowell Sonoran Preserve, but I bet the plants in my yard aren’t wildflowers found in nature, but plants bought in nurseries.

If you have any idea what these plants are, please let me know!

What is in bloom in your neck of the woods?