Don't Fence Me In!

Since I am pretty much relegated to walking and not lifting anything much heavier than my camera, I have spent the morning out in the yard in this beautiful spring weather. Look at the newest beauties I found just starting to put on their show:

Climbing roses on the trellis,

Jasmine over the gate,

An early hydrangea just popping out,

Sun vine blooms hanging everywhere,

First of the gardenias just starting,

Herbs beginning to take off,

 If you look very closely, the grape tomatoes are starting to flower...

And, the mock oranges are going to town. I love these bushes because they remind me of my childhood. I grew up down by the groves that ran along the Indian River in south Florida. I will NEVER forget the intoxicating smell of those trees in blossom. I loved it so much that every time my cousins and I would visit McKee Jungle Gardens-a local Florida tourist spot that we would visit often on a lazy Sunday afternoon because we always had season passes and I guess it was a good way to keep 5 kids entertained for a day-we had to leave with a small bottle of their orange blossom perfume...but, I digress. In any case, even though I know these mock orange blooms do not contain that exotic fragrance, every time they bloom I am compelled to stick my nose into them just to make sure!

Even though they always disappoint with the lack of fragrance, they never disappoint with how pretty they are in a large display simply put in a vase.

This is my nod to spring branches in a bouquet. It may not be apple blossoms or forsythia but lovely never the less...and I will take what I can get!

So I am trying hard not to do any lifting or bending but that is NOT an easy thing for me. There are still some things on the list to accomplish outside and I am having a hard time just "chilling". I brought my coffee out with me and then picked a few gardenias to stop and "smell the "roses"". As long as I don't look down at weeds popping up since I weeded here just a week ago or over to that high stack of bags of mulch, I will be O.K. And, just when I thought I had to head in and find a book or magazine, I noticed some movement on the other side of the yard.

I know this sounds crazy, but we have had a resident cardinal couple here for many years-and yes, I AM SURE it is the same two birds all these years! The male of the couple loves us so much that he wants in. If we are at the table in the sun room, he keeps coming to the nearest screen and hanging on to see what we are up to. If I am sitting in the living room, he is on the jasmine out front and, believe it or not, when we are in the family room, he literally comes to the side door and hangs on the grill to peek in.

In any case, today he was trying to get my husband's attention to let him know that his favorite feeder is empty. If you look really hard you can see him knocking on the window closest to my husband's office. This actually gave me many minutes of entertainment...and no, I haven't taken any meds-lol. No telling what I will find to do to keep me more entertained the next few days-stay tuned!