Neither wealth nor splendor

Hello my friends. I hope your week has started off on a good foot. I spent my weekend taking it easy because of the darn knee, and until I know exactly what’s going on, I’m trying not to overdo it. On Saturday, I thought I could do a quick trip to the grocery store so I went to the big WalMart down the road. Everything was copasetic at first, but it quickly went downhill and I found myself using the cart as a walker, and I left limping badly, after buying only three items.

I have an appointment with my orthopedist this week, so enough complaining for now.

Later that day, I took a very small walk around the yard, and sat outside with my knee up, capturing lots of bird images. If you know me at all, you know that this is one of the things in this world that I simply love doing.




The entrance to my husband’s garden. This made me smile.

As did these images of birds caught in mid-flight . . .

* sigh *

From my seat on the patio, I could see that the black locust trees had their blooms, so I put on the macro lens and walked out to them.

They smell quite nice.

And they are so elegant-looking.

The black locust is native in the United States from Pennsylvania to northern Georgia and westward as far as Arkansas and Oklahoma, but has been widely spread. The tree reaches a height of seventy feet, with a trunk three or four feet in diameter and brittle branches that form an oblong narrow head. It spreads by underground shoots. The leaflets fold together in wet weather and at night; some change of position at night is a habit of the entire leguminous family. ~from Wikipedia

We have several black locust on the property, and they are the tallest among all of the trees here. In early May, their fragrant flowers grace the edges of the yard, and later as the flowers dry and begin to fall in the gentle breeze, they look like snow. It’s absolutely beautiful and something I look forward to every spring.




The old grapevine marks the edge of my husband’s vegetable garden. We’ve been enjoying fresh lettuce for the past couple of weeks, and there’s tomato plants galore. Why he plants so many tomatoes is beyond me, but I take the excess to work where they’re greatly appreciated every summer.

And I get to live on caprese salad here.

"It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation which give happiness." ~Thomas Jefferson

: : :

And on that note, I bid you farewell for now. Thanks for coming by. It’s always a pleasure to have you here ~


UPDATE: I had originally written this post identifying the black locust trees as black WALNUT trees. I do this all the time with my mixing up of species and I apologize for it. They are black locust trees. Sorry about that, folks.