on the sunny side

After my last post, my younger daughter said "People who read your blog will think our yard is so beautiful." She is a "the glass is half empty" sort of person. There are ugly bits for sure, but why would I concentrate on them? She sees mostly the mud and weeds.

But I love the lush greenness of spring. I love the weeds.

If you get down close, they are spectacular. (The picture below was taken from under the tree in the picture above.)

There is this ugly fence all around the front yard. I try to keep it out of my pictures most of the time. See that bush hanging from the wall on the right?

It grows there every year, right out of a crack in the wall.

The flowers are amazing. In 2 months it will look entirely dead, but it will grow back next spring, inshaAllah.

I have been trying to get a good shot of these blue flowers for years, but I have such a hard time convincing my cheap, point-and-shoot camera to focus on them.

One is almost in focus! These flowers are about the size of my little fingernail.

There are so many cool shapes. Look at the little heart shaped seed pods.

Weird and cool.

Some of the flowers are bigger, and it is hard to believe they are wild.

This definitely is a weed, it has vicious thorns on the tip of each point on the leaves, but the pattern is cool.

So I have to be careful of those while I am roaming around trying to get eye level shots of tiny flowers.

I have a horrible time with the yellow and white flowers. They are always over exposed.

So I have to darken the pictures a lot to get any detail in the flower.

And the majority of the flowers are yellow.

I have tried taking the pictures on a cloudy day, but the white still over exposes.

Like so....

See these big leaves? That's khubaysah. The leaves are cooked and eaten, a spring treat my husband loves. I usually wander around taking pictures while I am picking the leaves.

Umm Farouq mentioned khubaysah in a recent post, so I made a point of getting a picture for her. It grows all around the trunks of the olive trees. It doesn't seem to like growing in the open as much. I wish you could come pick some with me Umm Farouq. There is more than I can use.

MashaAllah,

wa alhamdulillah.

I am still here

I don't know how to begin. I feel like I ought to write some long, angst-y explanation of why I suddenly stopped blogging but I don't feel up to it. I get the blues and withdraw from the world sometimes. Thank you to each of the lovely people who wrote comments to ask where I was and if I am ok. Sorry but I don't think I will respond to each of you individually. Will you forgive me if I offer you a few pretty pictures?

I have been mostly looking at spring through my windows this year. This is the view from my bedroom window.
I really need to get out more, get a little fresh air and sunshine. Today was beautiful, and since the next couple days have rain forecast, I figured I ought to have a look at my yard while I can.The plum tree by my kitchen window has started to bloom. I can't look at those flowers and not feel cheered.
The garden is full of weeds and badly in need of some TLC. Those geraniums should have been pruned back last fall. I hurt my knee in October and haven't done a bit of yard work since.
Things are springing up all over the place. These snapdragons grew by themselves in the crack between the house and the sidewalk.My camera's batteries need replaced. They don't hold a charge for very long. I charged them over night and then ran around the house snapping pix quickly before the batteries went dead.I don't know why but I can't get a good picture of how the wildflowers look except as closeups.

What just looks like grass in this picture contains thousands of tiny flowers.The cat divides his time between chasing butterflies in the flowers and waiting at the door for my husband to feed him.
Stupid kitty.This all will need to be dug by hand. The plow can't get in these narrow parts of the yard without trampling the plants I want to keep.
Everything looked pretty today.The field behind the house is full of pretty red flowers, but they don't grow much in my yard. I love to look at them, but it never looks as nice in the pictures.Luckily, my youngest picked me a hand full of them on his way home from school, right before my batteries went dead. (The color here is totally wrong. They are a deep, true red.)
Bye for now. InshaAllah it won't be another 6 months before I post again.