A Gardener's Diary

where we have to find glimmers of color. We’ve been in a pattern of cold, clouds, and wind. There is no point to go outside to try to do yard work, it will all just blow away, and the wind and clouds make a decent temperature seem colder.

So I stay inside and look out my window at waving ripples on the pond — no sun shimmering on them today, which is so entrancing; tree boughs wrestling with each other on which way to go; and a morning that is reminiscent of a dusk turned upside down.

But happiness can be found in the streaks of color that dot a grey background.

A bluebird’s blue can never be missed streaking through the sky or resting on a rose shrub trying to emerge from winter’s trance.

The striking color of the cardinal even dismisses the green bough of a cypress,

The pheasant’s colors catch your eye as he walks and pecks at nibbles on the ground.

While the wood duck, on a disinterested background, allows his perfectly precise, painted colors to emerge from muddy waters,

And let’s not forget the abstract option — the flight of the red-winged blackbird, only truly able to show off its red and yellow while taking off en masse,

If the sun won’t, these images will lighten my day!

Enjoy yours!

#birdsofmn #woodducks #cardinals #nature