Happy Fields of Flowers

Can't ask for a lovelier Seguin as of late. Y'all have a great weekend! And if you're going to Trade Days tomorrow, please come see me at our booth and say hi. We have a double booth behind the court house.

Spring Breaks

Happy Spring Break, everyone! Seems like the whole state is on break this week. The work parking lot is mostly empty. Makes me just want to skip work and take pictures of all the blooming loveliness about town. I snapped this beauty out at the nearby My Father's Farm nursery on Highway 123 close to our house, which is very near the center of town. I always wonder if people realize there are over thirty bee hives on that nursery property. They are doing quite well out there between the abundant wild mustard blooms and now all sorts of different wildflowers are coming out. Very lovely to see.

Revitalizing Rains

 
It's been a couple of weeks since our last great rainfall but we continue to see how alive the landscape has become with just a touch of rain. No amount of hand-watering can work the magic that real rain provides. It's wonderful! Things are green again and we even have flowers blooming, which is great news for our bees as well as for us. The color bloom we are seeing most is yellow - blooms of all sizes, large and small. The bees are loving it!

Butterflies and Thistle

This one if for Alan. :-) Thistle is here and so are the butterflies. We saw these along Big Oaks Road south of town a bit when we went to check on the bees out there. So many black butterflies everywhere - it was amazing! We had too many bee yards to check on so no time to get out of the truck. I got a few shots of the activity. We were wondering if these butterflies were competition for our bees as they all searched out nectar in this dry spring. The butterflies must be winning or the bees must not yet want thistle in their diet because we saw not one bee on the purple blooms.

Wildflowers & Artfest/Trade Days

Today's post is brought to you by some of the gorgeous yellow wildflowers currently in bloom in our lovely state. Hope you have been able to get out and see some of the blooms in the fields. This year we've not had the rain we needed, yet flowers are popping up all around. Perhaps the dry winter and spring gave these rare flowers an opportunity to pop up more noticeably. Not sure. All I know is that I've not seen these before so I thought I'd share here. Anyone have any idea what they are called?

It's been a crazy week for us so we haven't had a chance to share that Artfest is happening down on the square tomorrow from 9a to 5p. There's also a Trade Days and that's where Mark, Belinda and I will be all day - selling our delicious Gretchen Bee Ranch honeys and bees wax products. Hope you will stop by our booth near the gazebo if you are down there tomorrow. We'll have our first double booth with our big ole double canopy. We're big time now! :-) Mainly, just come by, say hi and sample some honey. We'd love to see you.

More Springy Signs

Nothing says spring like flowers blooming everywhere - in fields, on trees, on fences, in flower pots and in gardens. It's everywhere and I have spring fever. I need to get out and dig into the flower beds and our little garden. I just need about 20 more hours added to my weekend to get it all done. :-)

The above picture is from a trip we took to one of our local bee yards. This year there is an abundance of these wild berry plants growing all over pretty much everything. Good news for us and the bees. Last year Mark and I sampled a few berries we found and they were very tasty. Maybe we'll have even more to sample this year.

Below is a shot of a Bluebonnet I checked out in the same field as the berry blooms. I like pulling down the petals and looking at the bright pollen and the cat-claw inside. It is such an intriguing flower and it lifts my heart each time I see it; whether it's one bloom or an entire blue sea of it. It's one of the most beautiful wildflowers I've ever seen and it's one of the best things I love about coming to Texas so long ago.

Maldonado Nursery

I am sorry it's been so crazy busy, friends! I haven't forgotten about you, I promise! Today I got to visit this awesome nursery in town for a few shots of our honey going into the shop! Exciting news for us!! What I really like is the shot below. Have a great week, everyone!

Peekaboo Animals & Unidentified Flower

Last week Mark and I went for a ride just outside of town so he could show me some flowers the bees are working right now. While we were looking in a pasture for the flowers, I spotted these little wild piggies. There were a lot of them! And they looked different from the domestic pigs - well, at least to me. Kind of cute but they ran off when they heard us coming. As did some of deer we saw - good points of them, too.



The baby cow didn't seem to mind me and he did well when we called for him to look at the camera. :-) And below is the flower we have been trying to identify. I zoomed in as far as I could since they seem to be located in pastures to which we do not have access. boooo! If you have any idea what it could be, please let us know. It's always nice to know what our bees might be feeding on since they are still making honey.

Hope you all have a GREAT weekend! Another hot one around here - upper 90s into next week and still no rain. Let's pray for some relief SOON.

Summer Bloom

It's been blazing hot lately but nothing like last year, that's for sure. In our garden, we still have several sunflowers left to enjoy though they are fading. I'm still amazed at many different blooms we have seen this year and it's still kicking. On our drive to Lost Pines (Bastrop) this weekend, we saw many fields of sunflowers (the smaller variety) and other very small yellow flowers (not sure what they are). It was lovely!

I hope you all have a really WONDERFUL week ahead!

Gorgeous Blooms in the Summer Heat

I have great news to share with you! Mark's book got a great review in Southwestern Historical Quarterly and I am SO PROUD of him! I read it and my chest felt like it was going to simply burst, I was so happy for him. Congratulations, honey!

What does that have to do with these pictures? :-D well...all weekend he tried a source where we could access the quarterly (typically an institutional subscription rather than an individual subscription) and read the review. Unfortunately, our public library didn't renew their subscription so we trekked over to Texas Lutheran University but they were CLOSED since it was a summer weekend! Rats! BUT...the trip was not wasted. I spotted these lovelies right outside the library. They are, by far, he largest Hibiscus blooms I have seen and I loved the color! Gorgeous splash of vibrant life in the sweltering summer heat. I loved it. Hope you all have a GREAT week!

Flower Explosion

This spring has been one of the best flowering springs I have experienced in my 15 years living here and I am happy I stayed here long enough to enjoy such a sight! Every time I drive somewhere, I am truly amazed at the new flowers that have appeared that weren't there a week ago. And many of these I haven't seen here before. It's wonderful!

Currently, it seems there are a lot of yellow and purple flowers of different varieties blooming. BUT...there are also these beautifully delicate white flowers (anyone know the name) along with the Indian Blanket shown below. By the way, the bees LOVE Indian Blankets. They were all over these as I was photographing at a friend's home out in the country this evening. We ate dinner before heading out to see Jim, who had contacted Mark about a swarm. I guess we took too long for they were gone when we got there though Mark said they were likely nearby as they were buzzing the flowers pretty well. Thanks for showing us around, Jim!

Gorgeous Day after a Cloudy Week

(These are tiny blooms from our bush but they are packed with sweet fragrance!)

Today was absolutely gorgeous here in Seguin after what seems like two weeks of mostly to all cloudy days, one after another. And there was a ton of activities in the community I noticed as I drove around on errands. We had a fundraising BBQ plate event at church and I know friends whose church is also having a festival this weekend. Then there was the Trade Days event along with Farmers' Market and we think an Earth Day event, too. All at one time. BUT...I still made time to enjoy sitting on the deck for a bit with Smokey, who was snoozing. It looked so comfortable I plopped down next to him but in the sun to soak it in. The breeze was PERFECT - no humidity. Gosh, if we had this sort of weather more often, then I'd never dream of another state with four seasons! :-)

Spring Flowers

More loveliness of spring blooming all around us.

Fields of Color

Today we went driving on Hwy 90A towards Gonzales in order to check on the bee yard out there. It's gorgeous along the way! If you haven't seen enough wildflowers, then you need to go out that way. I love how the blue and the red flowers are mixing in this area. Last time we were out that way (a couple of weeks), the Bluebonnets were not even around yet. This time, you can find many fields of blue. And yellow, purple, lavender, violet, white and so on. It's a great spring so far with the bright sunny days after a good dose of rain.

Red Wildflowers

The flowers are starting to really pop around here and I can't wait to see how they develop over the next month. The rainy winter should really be just what they need to shine this year. I love looking at all of them! I have not seen these red flowers in such quantity before this year. If you know what they are, please let us know. :-)

More of Spring in Blooms

Another shot of spring for you this week. The peach tree in our backyard bloomed and we were very happy to see bees on the tree! In past years, the bees simply didn't do the job for our little tree, sadly. Maybe this will mean good peaches this year for us. :-) We don't have our hives in the yard anymore (moved to another bee yard), so I'm not sure where this little gal came from this day.

It's been really great weather lately with spring in full swing it seems. Flowers are everywhere and trees are putting out little leaves. I enjoyed our nice winter this year but I am also enjoying the spring. Tonight we are to have some rain and tomorrow will be in the upper 50s but after that...more sunshine! That's great for lifting spirits I think. We could all use a lot of that, right?! Hope you all have a great week.

Spring in Bloom

The past few days have been a bit on the dreary side but last weekend, we did enjoy an absolutely gorgeous day that beckoned us out. So, out we ventured to visit our bees, which was just awesome! And...NO stings! Yay! That makes like seven or eight straight visits without a sting so that is awesome to me. :-)

Isn't this beautiful? It's flowers on bok choy that is growing at My Father's Farm. Normally, they would not get to "flower" since they'd be harvested before that point. We are so lucky and so are our bees - the farmer let these go to flower so they'd have food! And boy, were they enjoying the bok choy. It was really fun to visit there.

Kolbe Flower Shop

Did everyone survive the crazy weekend? I hope you had a nice one with the beautiful weather! For Valentine's Day, I received a beautiful arrangement of flowers from one of the nicest flower shops in town - Kolbe Flower Shop on Austin Street. I love their quaint shop and the service is awesome there. They also did an arrangement for our wedding and Mark's gotten me numerous gifts there (thanks honey!). Below is one of the pretty flowers from my special gift. :-)

More Prettiness

This time the prettiness was photographed on my drive home. Right around the corner from us on Camp Street is this great big mass of vines and on the vines are some of the most amazing flowers you'll ever see. I have been wanting to stop and shoot these for some time (like every year they bloom for the past 3 or 4 years) and yesterday I decided it was time. And the lighting was nice I thought.

I love the vibrant colors. With all the rain, everything is so green, so lush. And the layers, textures and numerous elements of these flowers just amaze me. There are different varieties in different colors. If I could find one potted, I would take my mom one. She has such a green thumb and I think she'd love the uniqueness of this. Do you know what it is? (Without clicking on my Flickr b/c I put the name there.)

Prettiness

...at the Mill! These flowers are blooming at the Mill and I love looking at them. I don't know what they are called though so if you know, tell me please! :-) Lately we have finally started receiving steady rain so everything is green and lush and flowers are everywhere. I'm glad since this is a little extra goodness for our bees! Speaking of which, the ones here in the city are MEAN. You know what that means...

Hope everyone's having a great week. We are half done with the week already!