herbiehancock

I didn't blog last week, but I did find time to take a few pictures to share with you.  You can click on them to enlarge them if you want to see more details. The ground under the trees in the park has a carpet of white that looks like snow. Thankfully, it is NOT snow, but is a carpet of these little white flowers instead. I caught this squirrel off guard stealing food from a bird feeder.  When he realized I was there, he scampered off to this tree.  Then he peeked around the trunk to scold me for taking his picture. The dark colored trees in this picture behind the blossoming white ones are crabapple trees.  Just today I noticed that they are now starting to open up with pink blossoms.  I didn't get over to take a picture of them, but I hope to do so in the next day or so.  The next few photos show some of the color I found around my neighborhood. I'm so glad to see that the trees are finally starting to get their new green leaves. This is the magnolia tre...

Last night, a little after 11:00 pm, we heard sirens.  They seemed very close, perhaps even in our neighborhood, but we didn't know where exactly they were or what was going on.  This morning, we heard on the news what had happened.   Part of the children's playground called the "Imagination Station" had burned.  This playground is in the middle of the park where I take my walks just a couple of blocks from my home.  I go by this playground nearly every day. Hearing this news was incredibly sad for all of us here in my town.  Perhaps some will think that it was just a playground and it is no big deal, but to the people who live here it WAS a big deal.   This was a big deal because it was a community project.  The money ($130,000) was all donated from private funds to build this playground, and it was built by the people of the town here themselves (2,600 volunteers).  It was designed from ideas that were contributed by area school childr...

In my poetry picture poll a few posts back, some of you requested I write a poem using all of the pictures from the poll in a poem.  I decided to give it a try and this is what I came up with. A Poodle in the Park So much to do for a poodle in the park. Chasing runaway bunnies, it's hard not to bark. So much to sniff:  flowers around a rock, hickory nuts that look like toys, by the fence-- a shoe, a sock. And oh so much to see...  pink porcupines up high, down low some prickly green, and buzzards floating by. On the way back home now, can you hear the cicada buzz? The poodle is getting tired. He's not as bouncy as he was. The lily by the fence and sunflowers in a row, the poodle perks up a bit. He's back home now, don't you know. And though the park is fun being back home is really good too, especially for a poodle dog whose nap is overdue.

My friend and fellow blogger, Diana , sent me a message that she was going to be passing by my little town.  She wanted to know if I would be free to join her and her husband for lunch.  I was delighted at this opportunity to meet her and gladly accepted her invitation.  She very generously prepared and brought a picnic lunch of chicken salad sandwiches, fruit, and her homemade Cowboy Cookies for the three of us.  Everything was delicious! I borrowed a camera so that I could take pictures of our get-together.  Diana's husband, Larry, took this picture of Diana and me in the shelter where we had our picnic in the park. Diana and her husband are celebrating their thirtieth wedding anniversary today!  Isn't that remarkable!  In honor of their anniversary, they are taking a vacation trip which happened to bring them to my part of Ohio.  It was so much fun to sit and chat with Diana and her husband while we ate our lunch.  This is a picture of Di...

Last weekend, we had nothing but rain and wind and more rain.  The next day as I walked through the park, I found two things. I found flower petals from the trees on the ground everywhere I looked.  I also found puddles.  It was kind of sad that so many of the petals from the flowering trees were knocked down so quickly after they appeared, but it was inevitable. After the rain, a carpet of pink petals had been spread out underneath the crabapple trees. The rain came down so fast that it took a while for it to drain off and soak into the ground.  It was standing in a big puddle above the underground drain in the park. There was another big puddle behind one of the baseball fields underneath some pine trees. Everywhere I looked there were petals on the ground.  Pink and white ones were spread like confetti over the parking lots. Yellow ones were spread out underneath the forsythia bushes too. More pink petals lined the street along the curb and were littered over...