Wordless Wednesday reposted on Thursday

Photo of Viburnum Opulus Sterile (Snowball tree) Resized and able to be viewed better compared with my first post.

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Wordless Wednesday on Thursday this week

The first leaf emerges on one of my Viburnum Opulus Sterile (Snowball tree)

Out of the blue

The pattern of rainy weather continues on here. But in a small gap between weather systems, the sun came out and the sky was blue. Rain is falling again as I type this. The garden is not thirsty.

The magnolia has burst forth with more flowers.

The gales of the past day or so plus the rainy weather have damaged some of the flowers. The tree is nearly 40 years old and was planted by a previous owner so I have no idea of the type of magnolia it is.

It hunkers down by a fence and is protected by an ever green magnolia in our neighbour’s garden plus the surprising tall Japanese Maple nearby.

The magnolia’s spread is wide and reasonably high.

Here is my best effort at capturing it while the sun shone on me and the light was welcomingly bright.

The weather forecast is for a thunderstorm and hail today and if hail falls the flowers will really suffer. An out of the blue opportunity was too good to miss with the camera.

However no thunder and no hail arrived. The magnolia has enjoyed that and so have all the humans:-)

A host of golden daffodils……..of various tonings

Spring is showing itself here more dramatically with each passing day. I went down to the reserve near our local school and kindergarten today where there are thousands of daffodils planted. They are planted in the grass beneath a stand of flowering cherry trees.

I blogged about the cherry trees here and mentioned that this reserve is in honour of Porirua’s sister city relationship with Nishio city in Japan.

The wind was gusty so the daffodils were dancing and nodding. The trees above them are budding but have to yet to flower.

A variety of daffodil bulbs have been planted giving a varied show.

Across from the reserve was a weeping willow tree just putting out its first soft, tender, pretty green leaves in a hazy display.

A flowering fruit tree was bursting with blossom.

And further down the walkway was a small flowering tree with these delicate white blossoms showing.

Sunshine and beauty

When the sun has been absent for long stretches of time and the rain has dripped and drizzled or poured down on and off for weeks, a sunny day is such a tonic.

Yesterday was a warm and sunny day. I took my lunch outside and soaked up the healthy Vitamin D on offer. I could feel the goodness raising my spirits.

I checked the magnolia and the bud I have blogged about here.

Like me the buds have been waiting patiently for the sunshine and warmth.

Look at the soft suede-like petals, happy to open, at last, in the right conditions.

And with the aid of the macro on the camera have a peep in here. What beauty is held within the cup of petals.

Wordless Wednesday

Chatham Island Forget-me-not leaves

Chatham Island Forget-me-not leaves

Some sunshine on Saturday

The sun has been a rare visitor here for the past two or three weeks. We have also had a lot of rain. Some has fallen in dramatically heavy showers while other rain has sifted down as drizzle. The ground is waterlogged so gardening is not easy to do right now.

So any sun that appears right now is very, very welcome.

Nature has provided me with some different sunshine to bring inside and enjoy.

Sending you sunshine wherever you are.

This time last year

It is a year ago since we were in the grip of a vicious weather system that came straight from Antarctica. Snow fell here over several days in a very unusual occurrence.

In contrast, today was mild and the sun came out. Last year provided a very unique event for us to enjoy and remark about but the weather today was more preferable. We hope for a fine, dry weekend here. Fingers crossed…..

Catch up on the blog

The rhythms of the normal routines here have been altered in the past 10 days. We headed to Hawkes Bay to visit the oldest member of the family as he celebrated his 86th birthday earlier in August.

I wrote a list of things to take in the hope that I would not forget to pack vital items. The one thing I did not pack was the camera. I was very disappointed as I wanted to get some photos of the wide, expansive vistas of the Heretaunga Plains. The landscape there is so different to my usual views here at home.

Fortunately one of the family did take a camera and so I have a photo of the emus that lived next door to the lovely, peaceful, comfortable, boutique self-contained accommodation we rented here.

Did you know that Emus can make a deep booming noise? They don’t sleep for long periods of time so that accounts for me hearing them “boom” at 4.15am. Fortunately the booming was short-lived.

The accommodation is part of a small life-style block on the outskirts of Hastings and the owners have a menagerie of different birds and animals. Part of our rent included these fresh free-range bantam eggs.

We always buy honey from Arataki Honey House when we visit Havelock North. Look at this golden goodness. We take a 6kg bucket and get that refilled at the Honey house every 6 months. This small jar was a gift.

While at Arataki I picked up two brochures. One provides ideas for plants to have in the garden to attract honey bees. I intend to plant some marigolds when the rain eventually stops falling here, in the hope that more bees will visit.

The other brochure details all the new cycle tracks in the Hastings/Napier area. Locals are busy exploring and enjoying these tracks and which will appeal greatly to tourists visiting this special and beautiful part of the country.

Wordless Wednesday

Emerging Magnolia flowers on the tree in my garden. The first photo was taken on 10 August, the second photo (of the same bud) was taken, today, 15th August.

And when I turned around this bloom has almost fully emerged without me noticing it. It is higher on the tree and receives more sunshine and light.