Category Archives: Notes

1103. Springtime is the land awakening. The March winds are the morning yawn. ~Lewis Grizzard

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March! March! March!
They are coming
In troops to the tune of the wind.
Redheaded woodpeckers drumming,
Gold-crested thrushes behind;

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Sparrows in brown jackets, hopping
Past every gateway and door;
Finches, with crimson caps, stopping
Just where they stopped before.
March! March! March!

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They are slipping
Into their places at last…
Literature white lily buds, dripping
Under the showers that fall fast;
Buttercups, violets, roses;

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Snowdrop and bluebell and pink,
Throng upon throng
Of sweet posies
Bending the dewdrops to drink.
March! March! March!

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They will hurry forth
At the wild bugle sound,
Blossoms and birds
In a lively flurry,
Fluttering all over the ground.

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Shake out your flags, birch and willow!
Shake out your red tassels, larch!
Grass blades, up from your earth-pillow.
Hear who is calling you…
March, March, March.
~Edited poem by Lucy Larcom

…He(God) makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind.He makes winds his messengers… ~Excerpts from Psalm 104:3-4 ✝

**Images via Pinterest 

1102. Fate shall yield to fickle chance, and chaos judge the strife. ~John Milton

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Bright and true and tender
can Mother Nature be albeit 
dark, fierce, fickle and disastrous
oft too is she.
~Natalie Scarberry

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It is sad that nature will play
such tricks with us poor mortals,
inviting us with sunny smiles to confide in her,
and then, when we are entirely
within her power, tricking us to the heart.
~Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Every year it seems to me
I hear complaints about spring.
It is either “late” or “unusually cold,”
“abnormally dry” or “fantastically wet,”
for no one is ever willing to admit
that there is no such thing as a normal spring.
~Thalassa Crusso

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This year had been shaping up to be the best spring ever in my gardens, and then as so often happens over the Texas prairies this time of year, blustery high winds caused cold air from the north to collide with the existing warm air making Mother Nature more foe than friend as night fell. I must have had some kind of sixth-sense inclination of the impending doom, however, because I took the three photographs above before I called it a day and came inside for good. Sadly what you see in them is gone now. The reason for their demise can be seen in the picture below of the huge amount of pea-size to quarter-size hail that fell with the two-inch downpour of rain. I know that it could have been worse because tornados can and do sometimes accompany such weather events; so I’m grateful this time wasn’t one of them and that no one was hurt or experienced loss of life, limb, or property. But it was still sad, very sad today, to see masses of green “carnage” as well as the remains of flowery life and beauty scattered everywhere. Yet I will always praise the Lord for the rain.

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Ask the Lord for rain in the springtime; it is the Lord who sends the thunderstorms. He gives showers of rain to all people, and plants of the field to everyone. ~Zechariah 10:1  ✝

1101. One of the most delightful things about a garden is the anticipation it provides. ~W.E. Johns

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How much of the splendor of life is wasted
on us because we plod along half-blind,
half-deaf, with all our senses throttled
and numbed by habituation.
~Brother David Steindl-Rast

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We are born into a magical world of sensory delight,
our beings naturally tuned to our surroundings.
We are part of nature, our senses connecting
us to the whole like an umbilical cord,
allowing us to commune with and be
nurtured by the source
from which we have sprung.
~Lang Elliott, nature author, speaker,
cinematographer, and poet

Well, kiddies, little Natalie Scarberry worked too hard out in her springtime gardens today so her body is saying unkind things to her, and we are under a severe thunderstorm weather alert. Thus, I’m calling it a day and shutting this thing down because storms in this part of the world during the early months can get rough. From my cell phone, I shall try to read on the reader as many of your posts as I can before I completely conk out, and I will reply to comments on my cell phone. Take care. Love, Natalie

Son though He was, He learned obedience from what He suffered and, once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him… ~Hebrews 5:8-9  ✝

**Image is a new iris of mine that just bloomed for the first time today.

1100. Creativity is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in. ~Amy Lowell

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Imagination is more important than knowledge.
For knowledge is limited to all we know and understand,
while imagination embraces the entire world, and
all there ever will be to know and understand.
Creativity is seeing what everyone else has seen,
and thinking what no one else has thought.
~Albert Einstein

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Why should you think that beauty,
which is the most precious thing in the world,
lies like a stone on the beach
for the careless passer-by to pick up idly?
Beauty is something wonderful and strange
that the artist or writer or musician
photographer or dancer fashions out of
the 
chaos of the world in the torment of his soul.
~Edited and adapted excerpt from
W. Somerset Maugham

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us,  to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. ~Ephesians 3: 20-21  ✝

1099. To write as one should of a garden one must not write outside it or merely somewhere near it, but in the garden. ~Frances Hodgson Burnett

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Gardening is about enjoying
the smell of things growing in the soil,
getting dirty without feeling guilty,
and generally taking the time
to soak up a little peace and serenity.
~Lindley Karstens

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Spring
I lift my face to the
pale flowers of the rain.
They’re soft as linen,
clean as holy water.
Meanwhile my dog runs off,
noses down packed leaves
into damp, mysterious tunnels.
He says the smells are
rising now stiff and lively;
he says the beasts are waking up now
full of oil, sleep sweat, tag-ends of dreams.
The rain rubs its shining hands all over me.
My dog returns and barks fiercely,
he says each secret body is
is the richest advisor,
deep in the black earth
such fuming nuggets of joy!
~Mary Oliver

Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge Him. As surely as the sun rises, He will appear; He will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.” ~Hosea 6:3  ✝

**Images of rain splattered Crocus and Mary Oliver with one of her dogs via Pinterest