Waking up to the world waking up!

What a beautiful morning! Yesterday, I looked outside and at first glance it appeared we had a shower overnight. You can see that things are "greening up" under the pergola outside our back door.

When I stepped outside, I saw... white stuff! It looked like a very thick frost and most of it had already melted away, but when I checked a little farther from the house, I found that it had, indeed, snowed!

This should not have surprised me since when we were kids, it seemed every spring we would hear the story of the day our grandparents were married, April 14, in the biggest snowstorm of the year!

I found a Motherwort plant (that I had forgotten that I had even planted) and saw how beautifully it is coming along, even with the snow tracery around it. That gorgeous bright green is sooo welcome after the grayness of winter.

The daffodils have been knocking themselves out for some time, but now the tulips are coming along to pick up the slack as the earliest daffodils begin to fade.

Actually, everything is starting to really wake up from it's winter nap.

I looked up and saw the sun just starting to peek through the pines behind the house and wanted to see what kind of a picture this shot would produce. I like it!

Those big pines give us such nice shade in the morning now, but when we moved here, over 20 years ago, they looked like Charlie Brown's Christmas trees! I think they each had about 2 branches and they were so misshapen. Rob was a baby then and when we sat in the kitchen as I fed him his breakfast, the sun came straight in the window, blinding me!

Of course, Rudy came with me on this early morning ramble. He looked up at me as I was pointing the camera his way and I felt the need to snap his picture.. he's such a sweetie!

His coat is so full and we have already begun brushing him to help the shedding along. He's, oh, so much more cooperative this year!

Shortly after we went back inside the house, we had some very serious looking snow squalls! They passed quickly and we went on to the sunny spring day we were hoping for.