Eastertide

A few days before Easter I took the kids for a walk around the park near us. The wildflowers are starting to emerge into the pale light of the Spring sun. Everywhere there are buttercups, grass widows, and lilies.  Noisy northern flickers, red-breasted nuthatches, red-winged blackbirds, California quail, mallards, crows, robins, and I think my favorite song bird- the mountain chickadee, are out defending territories, finding mates, building nests and announcing Spring.

Wild and delicate glacier lilies



Fuzzy catkins

Red-winged Blackbird

This fellow was such a tease. He flew between us and the sun. As the light shone through his wings, it was like looking at stained glass.  Every time I would try to get a picture after he landed, he would weave his way into the branches of a thicket and it was nearly impossible for my "point and shoot" camera to find him.

Easter Smiles

Getting three young children to look at the camera simultaneously is no small triumph these days, so I am content with this photo in their Easter clothes. I would really like to put all the other pictures we took into a flip book so you can watch how one child, then two get distracted.  How the oldest tries to smoosh cheeks of younger ones to face the camera, how somebody gets something in their eye, and how another little person is asked where's mama and points to the sky instead. And this picture is for Nana and Papa- we took it while you weren't home because we thought that's where you'd want to take it if you were.