Last week marked not only the official beginning of spring, but also record-breaking temperatures for this time of year in Boston.  We got up to 88 degrees one day and it was glorious.  I wasted no time opening all of the windows and doors in the house to air the place out.  Man, I love me some fresh air.

Inspired by all of the flowers (or “flairs” as my granny calls them), bushes and trees that seemed to be bursting with blooms overnight, I decided to take my new camera for a spin in my parents’ yard.

I had to get about 40 out of focus pictures out of my system before I was able to capture any of nature’s glory in an identifiable manner.

Bear with me.

Ahhh, here we go.  This is a flower.  A hyacinth, to be exact.

I LOVE hyacinths.  They smell so lovely and have very unusual and articulated flowers.  I’ve planted dozens of hyacinth bulbs in years past, but the deer and ground squirrels (grrrrr) seem to have discovered that these bulbs make a delicious winter snack.  Thus, my rows of blooming bulbs are now quite patchy.  Harumph.

Moving on.

Hello, mint.  Are we going to be friends this year?

Come on, little phlox blooms!

This is my attempt at an artsy photo with the old, dried hydrangea bloom looking nice and crunchy on its last leg before the new growth obscured in the background bursts forth with life.  Deep stuff.

I’ll stop now.

This is what a baby hydrangea bud looks like up close and creepy.  It resembles a vicious Venus flytrap the way I have captured it, but I promise it will turn into a beautiful blue mophead soon.

Let me apply some bronzer to this drab photo and see if that helps.

Well, she’s no beauty queen, but it’s an improvement.

Guess what this is?

YES! Another bizarre photo of a hydrangea bush.  At least this one has some nice light.

And this is a birdhouse flower.  Very unusual, no?

(Just ignore me.  I’ve been cooped up in my house too long.)

This birdhouse, although it looks like a tear-down, is apparently quite charming inside.  It has been home to a black-capped chickadee family for the past few years.  Each year, the mama bird works tirelessly, bringing small twigs one by one into the house to build her nest.  Then, a few weeks later, she makes endless trips fetching worms for her little chirping babies.  If you stick your head right up close to the birdhouse, you can see their little open beaks and hear their faint high-pitched screams for more food.

As captured in the picture below (from last year), when I leave the deck door open, my cats sit right up next to the screen, mesmerized by the sound of the baby birds and the sight of the mama bird.

There’s a lot of chop-licking as well.

Good thing my cats aren’t allowed outside.

This is a new birdhouse that I purchased in Vermont at the end of last summer.  It’s made of reclaimed barn materials (if you hadn’t already deduced as much) and, though it is hard to see in this picture, it actually has a slight lean just like an old, weathered barn.  I knew I had to have it the instant I laid eyes on it.

I would like to crawl into this picture and bask in the warm glow of the sunlight, especially because it seems that spring is now over in Boston.  Somehow we have skipped the rest of spring and summer and gone straight back to winter as the temperature has barely grazed the high 40’s the past few days.

Good news:  I am soon moving to the South.

Bye-bye wacky Boston weather.  It’s been real.

Y’all come back now, ya hear?

Sugarlump