Warming temps and sunny skies have lightened my mood considerably. Though yesterday I was so tired when I came home from work that I went to lie down “for half an hour” at 7 p.m. and awoke, completely groggy and disoriented, at 9:37 p.m., just in time to say good night to the kids and cast myself back upon the shores of sleep.
Behind our house: a glowing ocean of golden gorgeousness; the rapeseed is in bloom. It’s not all the way blown, as I discovered when I walked out to the edge of the field. Each blossom is topped with a circle of small green tightly folded blooms that have yet to open. Even standing at the edge of the field and looking out over the sea of neon yellow felt like staring at the sun. The breeze was blowing and everything was in motion: the field slowly rippling, the pine trees behind me shushing the wind. The rapeseed field was edged in long grass and leggy dandelions vying for attention but unable to compete until close up. Rapeseed blossoms have a heavy, oily scent; very distinctive. But with the wind blowing the other way, I scarcely noticed. I was too busy saturating my brain in yellow.
Wildlife on display: two cooing wood pigeons that flung themselves out of the pine copse as I walked by. Magpies. Jackdaws. Crows. Starlings. A pied wagtail. The neighbor’s calico cat, hunched and staring, in the middle of the grassy pasture. A hen pheasant who shot out of the field upon my approach and her mate who followed her, screeching in protest. Huge bumblebees and some lacy-winged thing that buzzed me as I knelt among the blooms.
Contenders
Art Project of the Day: All of Bart Simpson’s chalkboard gags on one 22mm-long blackboard wall (Zoomify the blackboard)