Red in April

We signify spring with the phrases,

 "April shower bring May flower"

"Spring is springing"

"Spring has sprung"

"Spring surprise"

The nature is expressing spring more than thousand words. Warm, breezy and sunny bring happiness and welcoming to all living things. Birds flying, chirping cheerly around the trees, bees buzzing over the flowers, squirrel jumping over the branches, rabbit hopping freely in the yards, colourful of plants popping up wildly; showing the winter passed, new born of plants and new day for animal.

The most thing that catches my attention is red color around the yard. Red  which is used as a symbol of love, passion, anger and sacrifice really vibrant the environment. Obviously I would like to call the plants as Miss and introduce them here.

Miss Azalea, 

The name sounded so feminine. Blooming in spring with gorgeous red color and pleasantly scented. Azalea is a kind of flowering shrub and the flowers are so numerous that create a solid color in flower bed.

Below is from top view picture

Miss Pansy, 
It is wild flower popped up in  a sunny area. Pansy are available in a wide assortment of colors such as yellow, brown, blue, red, maroon and orange. 

Miss Holly Bush, it has bright red berries are somewhat toxic to humans but it is extremely important food for numerous species of bird.

Miss Red Maple. 
As the spring coming the red maple tree blooming with pink-red seed pods that look like flower on the tree. Some people called it winged seeds or helicopter seeds. 

The seeds pods actually twirling and hovering like helicopter when they are falling off of the tree to the ground. Those seeds will drop to be replaced with beautifully maple leaves.  

Miss young pear, the blossoming of white flowers which is last only two or three weeks is replacing by red small pear which is size and shape like  cherries. 

The pears will continue grow throughout the spring into early summer.

I also saw a few little red bird, but I couldn't get any picture of them since they flying away so fast unless If I had a good speed camera.

Have a good weekend!!

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Halfway spring

Temperature was changing from sunny into harshly cold, cloudy and raining has been pouring down since Thursday last week. I think everybody was expecting the end of  nasty, cruelty of coldness but no one knows.This weather really got me glum, moody and I can't wait to feel the warm and sunny soon. 

Dear Sun, 

I wish you would appear tomorrow! Warm place just caught in my thought. "Yeah, my home,". My memory had recalled out of  the blue about my  Australians colleagues, Alan and Steve. They were in love with Malaysia and wish never went back to Adelaide, OZ after accomplishment of work. Robert also always getting excited about warm weather and spending hours under the sun never bothering him. Generally the sun really affecting people and making them happier than cold weather.That's some of the reason majority of westeners moving to warm country or different hot places.

***********End of weather issue***************

Last Sunday afternoon, my baby had been doing something in the kitchen for few hours. I noticed that he boiled some eggs  and I thought he cooked it for making salad. He called me to the kitchen after a while, I came and saw 6 red plastic cups in a row and the eggs that he boiled were laying on the table. Each cup has filled up with different water colored,  they were blue, red, green, yellow, purple and orange. Oh! He spent his time preparing and setting up the table to make Easter eggs.  So I thought him wrong!

We had a creative and fun activity on that day. I  started it with dipping each egg in a different color but the color wasn't turn out brightly. They were pastel color. But he did in other way,  he soaked two eggs and let them stayed in that cup almost half an hour. Definitely I followed his method, soaking all those eggs after I saw his egg absorbed the liquid and turned out nicely in solid color. 
We dried them out on the box which already  poked  to make them stand still. I glued some of it with colored sand  as a final touch up. This sand was really messed my work, I accidentally dropped the egg and hit the sand bowl so the sand scattered all over the table, my t-shirt, poor me! I stopped in the halfway of doing it. The final result was in the picture below, tadaaa....

They looked pale when they dried. Maybe water-based color or the old product were part of the reason. Actually that egg dye coloring kit had been staying in a kitchen cabinet about a year ago, nobody use it and we planned to use it instead of throwing it away. 
We thought that would be cute to place them in the basket, but I can't find the basket. Finally we stored in the refrigerator. We ate some of them.

The picture below showing the easter eggs that I made a couple years ago. We boiled so many eggs that time and using vinegar was part of the  color ingredient. The result was so terrific and I love the colors. All those eggs looked amazing when I put them in the basket filled with fake grass.

Another colored eggs

Would you imagine if a hen lays egg like those color?  Huhu...that would be strange, I bet the price of chicken will go up.

Have a good week!!

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Hello Spring, Goodbye Winter

Spring or vernal equinox begin officially in March 20. The winter blues is over. Now it's arrival time for sunny weather, cool breeze. Time for land awakening,  rebirth and regrowth. Everything is changing from the green grass popping to trees blooming. Watching the surrounding yard,  nearby park, along the road in spring time made me thinking the time goes so fast. I love spring. Love to see the beauty of  colourful wild flowers, love to see  bugs and bees flying around, love to see the blossoming of trees.

Most obviously I can see yellow spot growing recklessly on the lawn. That is wild plant called "Dandelion", bright yellow flowers and eventually turning into white, fluffy balls that are actually the seeds of the plant. 

Personally the color of the dandelion brighten the yard and I disagree when some people get rid of  the dandelion with the weed killer. More pictures of Dandelion:

Another wild flower is "Daffodil".  Generally they come in yellow color and white-yellow color which  is symbolize friendship. They often bloom in clusters and look wonderful in the garden.

"Baby's Breath" or "Gypsophila" is a dazzling popcorn like flower. You can cut them and add as a filler to flower bouquets.

They are growing in the bushes and I love the combination of pink and white.

In the early spring, the pear trees start producing buds that progressively burst, cluster and blossom as white flowers. Pear tree blossom, huhu!

The flowers drop their petals after full blooming

I found some large bees working busily around the bulbs and flowers. Busy Bees! Panic?!  Please Don't! Generally Bumble bees are much less aggressive than honey bees and they are not attack human at all unless their life under threat. 

What's this guy doing? He is searching for nectar and pollen and helps pollinating flowers and flourishing the trees. 

Fruit grows by pollination. Pollination happens when the insects land on the flowers looking for nectar, a bit of the pollen from the anthers gets caught on the insect's body. Pollen? Pollen is powdery substance produced by flower that content male reproductive cells. May I called sperm? hehe!

As the insect fly from flower to flower, this pollen gets caught on the stigma(flower's female organ). Once the pollen land on the stigma they travel down to the ovary and the ovules are fertilized. These will become seeds.

Once a pear blossom is fertilized the white petals drop off. The ovary, located at the base of the flower, grows into the pear fruit that contains the seeds.

A color of Ladybug really attracting me especially the  red one. Here they called lady bug in the US but it also known as ladybird (UK, Aus, NZ), I used to call them ladybird. This pretty small creatures is part of beneficial to the garden when they eat the aphids and harmful insects on the pear tree blossom.

How do I welcome spring?

Many  people planning a lot of activities during spring season. Some of them going somewhere for spring breaks or they plan for wardrobe cleaning which they called "spring cleaning", some of them might think about gardening and plant the flowers, vegetables and herbs in their yard. I haven't planned anything yet.  Just packed all my winter clothing and I might be trying to grow some herbs.

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