Spring Break in Dallas

My spring break trip to Dallas was fun, but a disappointment in terms of seeing any wildflowers.  It was much too early for the areas of north Texas  I drove through as well as for Dallas itself.  An Austin friend tells me the flowers are really coming out now, and the blog Homesick Texan is asking on Facebook for folks to send in their photos. This is the time I am really a Very Homesick Texan, wishing I had the time for another trip over the border and down to the Hill Country, or to East Texas, to glory in the miracle of a Central Texas spring. But my class continues, and then come my cataract surgeries - so I'll have to say "maybe next year." By next spring Gail and I should both be truly retired, able to roam as and when and where we like. (Bluebonnet photo from Homesick Texan Facebook page)

Despite the wildflower disappointment, I enjoyed my nieces and a great meal at Gloria's with friends. Most of a day spent at the Dallas Arboretum's spring event Dallas Blooms was spiritually improving, although it was a little early even there.  And the crowds were astounding.  In truth I enjoy a visit to the Arboretum on a day without an ongoing event, just wandering through the various gardens, pools, copses, and of course the gift shop, without throngs of visitors everywhere. Here's a few photos from my day of tiptoeing through the tulips - and what Gail thought was a giant rat is in fact Ferdinand The Bull, smelling a bouquet of flowers.

Checking In

Home from Texas; drove back from Dallas with our friend Maryam, in time to go out to Laguna Pueblo on Friday for the Feast Day dancing.  We took her to the airport yesterday, and now it's time to get down to real life, no more fun and games - back to work, gotta go grocery shopping, not a thing but beans and eggs in the house, doing laundry this morning. More on both trips, Dallas and Laguna, maybe tomorrow.

After the sunshine and flowers in Dallas we were surprised by yet another spring snowstorm here on the weekend.  But then, it moved on to Texas too. What a strange year. Today it will be seventy, then Tuesday night another storm will blow in, quite possibly bringing yet another round of snow.  Great for the mountains and the skiers, and I must admit to gratitude for the moisture it brings to my yard. We have high expectations for spring, forgetting that it is actually the most changeable of seasons, as often cold as warm.  The explosion of weeds in my yard assures me that the flowers are on their way.  And my silly forsythia bushes are actually blooming.

Help Me Rhonda, Help Help Me Rhonda - Or Anyone Else

I won't be posting for a week or so, unless I get big inspiration and some unexpected time while I'm in Dallas, but if anyone has a minute to read the post I just put on Women On, asking for help with my new Facebook life. I don't really understand a thing about it.  Perhaps I am, as I have thought for years, just not a Social Network kinda gal.  So, anyway, let me know your thoughts. Do you Facebook? Why? Should I keep this? Why?

Have a wonderful week, it's spring break for many of us - maybe it will actually be spring???  Soon? Redbuds, daffodils, forsythia, tulips. They should all be there at Dallas Blooms.

Let Us OUT Of Here

A blogging friend posted a comment at my last post, to the effect that she had put her patio plants out on the patio, and they were looking great and happy out there. She is in Dallas, TX and I am in Albuquerque, NM. What a difference 640 miles make. As I type, it is snowing like mad here, has evidently been snowing for quite a while, and shows no signs of stopping. My outdoor plants, which are, as you can see, mostly succulents and cactii, have been screaming at me lately to LET THEM OUT of this house RIGHT NOW. They are in sunny south and west windows, the cats can't get to them, they are watered as needed, one of the crowns of thorns is blooming, the other is just about to, you'd think they would be happy as pigs in mud. They spend the summer on a rocky ledge in the back yard, among pots of perennials of a nontender sort, in morning summer sun, where they double in size every year; and their impatience to get back out there is palpable, emanating from them in waves.

Or is this what the therapists call projection? The snow is beautiful, but quite unexpected. I was planning to spend the morning weeding in the perennial beds. Like my jades, aloes, crowns of thorns, sedum, rosemary, and geraniums, I am desperate to GET OUT. It's supposed to be almost fifty degrees today, so this snow will be gone before dark.  But this strange stormy weather, say the necromancers, is supposed to go on through at least the rest of the month.

Already Gone To Texas In My Mind

Well, spring comes and goes at this time of year, doesn't it?  We've had some delightful days in the low sixties with sun and blue skies that tricked me into thinking winter was really over; but now we are having off and on storms blowing in from the Pacific, dumping feet of snow on the mountains, bringing cold winds, hail, and, blessedly, rain, to us here in the valley. Night before last we had a rain in the night that filled up my rain barrels, watered beds and planters.  When I went out to do some weeding yesterday, however, I found dry earth only inches down - so I am hoping for more precipitation before these storms blow off into Texas.

 As I myself will soon be blowing into Texas, this coming weekend in fact.  My spring break is next week, and my nieces in Dallas both have the same break, so I'm heading across El Llano Estacado to visit them and their parents for several days. A dear friend also lives in Dallas, and she too has that week off, so she will be driving back with me for a long weekend visit with us here in New Mexico.  I badly need this time, and a road trip, to blow the cobwebs of winter out of my soul. Gotta go to the library and find the perfect long audio book to last me at least to Amarillo.  From that point on there should be some wildflowers already blooming, at least according to the Sightings page at Wild About Texas Wildflowers.  I wish I had enough time to detour down to Austin and visit the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center, but that trip will have to wait a while.

What I will be doing, however, while in Dallas is visiting The Dallas Arboretum for Dallas Blooms.  This floral festival began last weekend, and lasts until April 11.  It seems early to me, at least for the way things are here right now, but according to the websight, there are many things that should be blooming in mid-March.  Crazy teenage girls, forsythia, tulips, irises, flowering quince, maybe even azaleas? Hopefully sunshine and balmy weather? I'm there, baby.  Just have to get through this week's classes and blustery storms, and I'll be there in a more than virtual way.

Chestita Baba Marta Everybody

I think we don't celebrate anywhere near as many traditions and occasions in this country as we could.  Every morning I get an email from Garrison Keillor's delightful Writer's Almanac.  There's always a poem, and then information about the date, usually literary birthdays or events, always interesting and informative, often (it's Garrison Keillor, after all) quirky.  This morning's quirky little bit of information was about some of the holidays that are celebrated around the world on March 1st. Most of these holidays have to do with the hoped-for coming of spring.

My favorite of these is this one from Bulgaria:

In Bulgaria, today is Baba Marta, or "Grandmother March Day." Baba Marta is a mythical figure, a temperamental old lady with big mood swings that correlate with the Bulgarian climate. When she's happy, she brings warm weather. When she's angry, the winter frost persists. So today, people in Bulgaria go around greeting each other "Chestita Baba Marta" — which means "Happy Grandmother March" — hoping that the old lady will be cheerful and bring warm weather and sunshine. And today in Bulgaria, people wear martenitsi. The martenitsa is a red and white brooch-like adornment made of yarn. It is supposed to make Baba Marta have mercy on the wearers and allow them be happy, so that they may all welcome the coming spring as soon as possible.

I thought this was intriguing, so looked it up on the ever-informative Internet, and found this great site with lots more about Grandmother March and the martenitsi: history, traditions, and best of all - folk tales about the day.This is a day for cheerful optimism and hope, for getting rid of the winter doldrums,  pleasing Grandmother March so that the birds will return, the fruit trees will blossom into life, the beasts bear their young. It's too late for this March 1st. not a scrap of yarn in the house - but by next March I'm going to have a little stash of martenitsi ready for greeting Baba Marta.