Dogwood Winter, With Tulips and Dandelions

Rainy and overcast, the skies briefly let a little sunshine through in the late afternoon of Thursday, March 24, 2011. And I spotted a welcome little tulip showing its head near my sister's mailbox. Was quite surprised, also, to find her dogwood tree in full earliest bloom, while, in my own back yard, to my delight, a dandelion was launching its seeds on their gossamer parachutes into the stiff breeze.

With the clearing skies, the temperature fell to 32 degrees F. (0 degrees C.) that night.

It's pretty early for dogwood winter, and the redbuds are also in bloom, but I haven't seen any blackberry blossoms yet.

New Pictures by Dierk Haasis

Taken at a wonderful location, this beautiful set of images can now be viewed on Dierk Haasis's blog. For those who read English more easily than German, here is a translation of the text, made using Google Translator.

Wonderfully surreal, new images from Dierk Haasis

In his Flickr photostream , there are seven new photos, uploaded today.

Don't miss the magical ivy!

Often Called a Tulip Tree

Around Nashville, Tennessee, the Magnolia liliifera is frequently called a tulip tree.

Warming up

with daffodils and a dandelion

Forsythia

Sunshine on a gray day -- the forsythia blooming as a hedge near the sidewalk that separates the Lipscomb University campus from Granny White Pike. And the bright flowers were swaying in the chilly wind this morning, when I took these pictures of a planting next to the log cabin which was once the farm home of the school's founder, David Lipscomb.

March, At Last!

And a new slide show now delights me on Dierk Haasis's home page. (You can also find it on his blog.) Two of my old favorites have greeted me here, heralding warmer weather, with the wind rushing past the bare legs of racing cyclists and, later, a close-up of a beautiful orange tulip. Social comment and humor inform many of these pictures -- such a varied group, scenes around Hamburg over the years, including two of its beautiful harbour at night. The gaze of a deer holds me for awhile in one image, and then, tucked in among views of recent street scenes and historic architecture, I encounter once more a small white bird in winter's frozen dark.