Springtime – at last!
Well, Spring finally made it to North Texas, but Winter is doing its best to hang on for dear life – and failing miserably.
On the first day of Spring it snowed. Oh, not like the snow we got in February, but it did snow enough to stick, at least until the next afternoon. Unlike the previous snowfall, however, I kept my camera tucked safely away. This time the snow wasn’t a novelty, nor was it “pretty”, and while there was enough to stick and show, it just wasn’t awesome enough to really care about. We probably got a quarter of an inch, if that, so it wasn’t worth braving the cold and wind to get a photo.
And so, it’s Spring, for better or for worse. You can tell because the temperatures fluctuate between warm and cold. But, you
Bee gathering pollen
I hope this Spring is a good one for North Texas. In recent years past we have seen our temperatures go from mild in early Spring to hot in mid Spring to down right late Summer like before Spring was done. And no rain. Well, okay, a little rain. But now we’re in an El Nino year and the prediction is that rain will continue at least through May with below-average temperatures. Hey, that will be nice for a change!
With Spring comes the Texas Bluebonnets and with all of the rain we’ve had since last Fall, this should be a great bluebonnet season. I can’t wait to get out with my camera and take a lot of bluebonnet photos, but it will be at least another two weeks before that happens because of our schedule, so I’ll just have to be patient. We almost always head to Ennis for the bluebonnet festival there and I suspect this year won’t be any different except that we might skip the craft fair and just go out hunting for good photo ops – along with a ton of other folks. We also usually take our dogs out for photos in the bluebonnets, but I don’t know if we’ll do that this year; we might, however, because we do have a new member of our family that we didn’t have at this time last year, and being a maltese, she’d look great among the bluebonnets – if she would hold still! The plans are up in the air, then, but bluebonnet photos will happen.
Posted in Seasons by Jason with no comments yet.
Going home
“They” say you can never go home again. “They” are correct. Oh sure, you can physically go back to the place that you call home, usually the place you grew up, but it isn’t the same as when you once lived there. Many of us that have journeyed home after many years away discover that new businesses have sprung up, new restaurants have opened, and many new houses have been built. Home has changed in that it has progressed forward. Maybe not in ways that you would like, but it has moved forward and is no longer the place that you remember. Old buildings are gone, adults you knew growing up have passed away, fields that you once played in are now shopping centers. Nestled in all of the change is the home you once remembered, only memories for you and history for the “newcomers”.
But even though your hamlet, town, city, metropolis has moved forward and grown, it is really you that has moved on and grown beyond the boundaries of the place you grew up and remember. Home has now become the place you rest your head each evening, the friends you meet on the street or in your living room, the place you worship, the place you work and shop and make memories. Sure, you can go back to the place you think of as “home” and rekindle old friendships and revisit old places of haunt, but you must start anew at making this once again home, just as you did when you moved away in the first place.
Home is where the heart is, where you rest your soul, and where you make your memories; memories captured in your mind or captured behind the digital lens.
Posted in Vacation by Jason with no comments yet.