magnolia

Pink Magnolia Bud

If you go to North Eighth Avenue in Highland Park today, most of the pink magnolia buds will probably be on the ground. I haven’t taken out my camera since April 17. There are other trees in bloom in Highland Park, but if I can spare a bit of time over the next few days, I am hoping to take out my watercolors and start a new painting. Not sure what will inspire me.

Thursday Challenge theme is SPRING. Next week: BEAUTIFUL (Attactive, Wonderful Colors, Hair, Smile,…)

Blooms in Highland Park

Many trees are in blossom in Highland Park.

As I was photographing the trees last week, a man walking by said, “two weeks, you’ve got just two weeks!”

Elinka has more Highland Park blooms on her post.

For more photos SOOC (straight out of the camera) and Flowers of Today:

Oh Deer, Rabbit and Magnolia

I saw one then two then three deer in a neighbor’s backyard. I approached them with my camera, and they backed into this corner. Then two hopped the fence. The last one stayed behind and nibbled an evergreen bush. New Jersey is getting so developed the deer are living everywhere, or so it seems.

This rabbit seems to be living in our backyard. I saw him twice yesterday.

My neighbor’s magnolia tree has started to blossom. You can see the buds of the magnolia on this post. The yellow background in this photo is from the forsythia.

I decided to give my magnolia blossom a blue background.

For more Nature Notes:

Rutgers Gardens March Reds

Yesterday we visited Rutgers Gardens. It is mostly winter bare, but if you look carefully, you can find some signs of spring.

These plants with red berries were growing by a stream.

Red buds were in many of the trees. Some of the trees at Rutgers Gardens have little signs stating what type of tree it is, but most don’t.

And more red buds in trees!

If you take red and white on a paint palette and mix them together, you get pink, like the pink bud of this saucer magnolia tree.

For more red, visit Ruby Tuesday:

Review with Magnolia Buds

On My Blog

Elsewhere in the Blogosphere

• Ilana-Davita asked some good questions about the parsha (which is Bo, about the end of the ten plagues and is quite violent).
• I finally finished reading Laish by Aharon Appelfeld, which is reviewed beautifully here by Jew Wishes. I cannot even begin to imagine being a 15 year old without parents who is raised by this caravan, but in some ways it is similar to Aharon Appelfeld’s story, who also lost his parents quite young.
• Mrs. S. is playing one of my favorite games, Othello. But she seems to be changing the rules.
• Muqata has an eye witness account about the IDF field hospital in Haiti: “A doctor and nurse from Germany came. They heard this is best hospital in Haiti. An emergency room team from Colombia arrived with all their equipment and asked if they could set up next to us to be part of our hospital. England is the enlightened country in Europe, the one which has an academic boycott of Israel; twenty British doctors and nurses asked to work with us.”
• Melissa wrote “It Takes a Community.”