Hallelujah - It's Spring!

I realize that anyone who lives north of Florida would smack me for this, but seriously - it was an unusually cold winter. No, really! Especially for us native Floridians. We're like strawberries - we can handle a freakishly cold day here and there, but successive cold days might actually kill us.

So it's with a glad and humble heart that I welcome spring. It's been in the 70s for several days, the sky a lovely blue today, and the sun is shining. Best of all, my back yard is once again showing signs of life.

I've misplaced my camera, so I haven't taken as many photographs as I would like to; the iPhone camera has several limitations, most importantly (at least when you're talking tiny green buds), it doesn't have a close-up view.

But I did add two new and neat apps to the iPhone last night: Hipstamatic, which allows you to take photos that look aged, plus other cool effects, and TiltShiftGenerator, which also allows you to fiddle with color saturation, focus, and other photo effects. Both say that the app gives your photos a "toy camera look" - but I have no idea what that means.

Anyway, the azalea bush in the back is going crazy:

Photo taken with the Hipstamatic (John S lens, Kodot Verichrome film, standard flash)

Here Comes the Sun . . .

Spring has arrived! Yes, I know it's probably a bit rude to rub this fact into the faces of anyone from up north - say, the 140,000 without power in Maine thanks to the snow storm, but I'm so excited and it's so pretty!

The azaleas are really starting to crank the blooms out now. This is our largest azalea, out back besides the porch:

(Speaking of azaleas, I think the Florida Azalea Festival in Palatka is still going on March 7-8, even though I couldn't find a single mention of it on the Palatka Daily News web site. There is a web site for the festival, but unless you want to register for the parade or the Azalea Queen beauty pageant, there's not much there to look at.)

Right next to the azalea is a shrub that has little tiny buds that are starting to pop:

When it's fully leafed, it provides a great deal of privacy for our master bathroom - right now, anyone who really wanted to can see in.

One of the other trees in the back yard is also budding with leaves:

There's a few survivors in the vegetable garden planted by the home's previous owners, and most of them are doing pretty well. There's some sort of cabbage plant, rosemary and parsley:

The pineapple isn't doing so well:

I'm really hoping my plumbago comes back. It looks bad - Kyle thinks it's a goner.