Breaking Free © 2010 Bo Mackison
So goes the journey called life.
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Posts tagged as:
pink
Magnolia's Secret © 2010 Bo Mackison
This particular magnolia blossom is one of the “little girl” magnolias; she is called “Pinkie.” It is a saucer magnolia and is one of the first trees to bloom in early spring. The blooms are huge, sometimes as large as 7 inches across, pale red-purple on the outside, and with white interiors. This magnolia usually blooms in southern Wisconsin in late April through mid-May, but this year Mother Nature has been kind to us northerners, and it feels like we’ve had May weather all for much of the month of April. Because of the warmer weather, most of the magnolias are past their peak, though a few of the late bloomers are prime now.
Happily, the crab apple blossoms are coming in profusely, and with great colors. I walked around the arboretum grounds a couple of evenings ago, and the scents from the various blossoming trees — crabapple, pear, magnolia, a bit of lilac — ah, surely a bit of heaven!
I’ve really been enjoying using my Olympus 50 mm, f/2.0 lens for some close ups of the blossoms this spring. It’s the lens I take off my camera in favor of the more all-purpose zooms, and forget about. Then one day I look in my case, and see this little lens all tucked in and waiting. I’m always happy when I decide to add the discipline of using a only prime lens for a while.
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Hearts of Spring © 2010 Bo Mackison
My grandmother’s garden had a bleeding hearts plant. I was fond of the tiny pink hearts that would bloom in April and May, all bunched together on branches. I always wanted to pick the branches of bleeding hearts to put in a jar in the house, but that wasn’t allowed. I can see why now. There is something quite magnificent about a little bush covered with rows upon rows of tiny fragile heart flowers.
These bleeding hearts are not from my grandmother’s garden. They were photographed at the Allen Centennial Gardens in the heart of the University of Wisconsin’s urban campus. This 2.5 acre garden serves the University’s horticultural program and students, although the university and Madison communities also benefit from this garden filled with botanical wonders and lovely sitting spaces.
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Everlasting Pea
This wildflower was blooming in abundance in the meadows on Washington Island. It is referred to as the “everlasting” pea because of its long flowering season – mid June through the end of September. The plant has a fruit which looks like the cultivated garden pea pod, though it is inedible. The showy flowers attract butterflies and sphinx moths for pollination.
Meadow on Washington Island
Washington Island, only 22 square miles, is sparsely populated. The island is 6 miles off the northern tip of Door County and it is hailed as “North of the Tension Line.” In this meadow, one of many wide open spaces on the island, the pea was prevalent; elsewhere there were stands of Queen Anne’s Lace and orange Day Lilies.
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I haven’t been a woman in this state of affairs for a long time. For the last 7,469,280 minutes of my life I have been a mother of one or more teenagers. But today the streak ends. My younger daughter, obviously the baby of the crew, turns 20 today.Today I lose my title as parent of a teenager; all my kids are now twenty-somethings.
Happy birthday, dear, and I wish you a day that brings you much laughter and love.
A Door County, Wisconsin cherry orchard bathed in pink dawn light
photographed May 26, 2008.
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Does anyone remember reading the book Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney? It is a children’s book written in the early 1980s, popular when my children were little. Miss Rumphius was a woman who wanted to do three things in her life – travel the world, live by the sea when she grew older, and make the world a better place. She easily accomplished the first two, but was a little stumped on how to accomplish her third goal until she hit upon the idea of scattering lupine seeds wherever she went. Wow! She must have made her part of the world really beautiful. Certainly a better place, too.
I think these flowers are pretty spectacular, standing about 3 feet high. This is an eastern Lupine, grows east of the Mississippi River. There are about 200 lipines in the family, and many of them are strictly West Coast plants. Many more are native only to California. This sweetie blooms from now until early June, though if the plant is dead-headed it will send up a second, though less spectacular, blossom.
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Travel down the streets in Quincy. Illinois on a spring day and you’ll see why it’s been recognized as a Tree City USA.
During the annual Dogwood Festival, the Dogwood trees seem to compete in their own beauty pageant. Every yard seems to sport its own tree, a mixture of creamy white blossomed trees and the more familiar pink Dogwood flowers.
The annual Dogwood Festival will be held next weekend, May 2 through 4, 2008, though I should be returned to my home in Madison by that time. I’m anxious to see what the last blast of winter did to my just-peeking-out bulbs and perennials, not to mention my own flowering trees.
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Today is one of those days that needed a little extra color – well, not a little extra – it needed a lot of extra color. And so here is my solution.
I finally opened a Picnik account with Flickr so I could play with my photographs. And that it what I have been mostly doing – playing. I change things around until I find something that appeals to me, but I never post any of these because – well, because they seem pretty weird and very manipulated, and of course they are.
Today I decided that it is okay to play with my photographs and have fun with them and even share them some of the time. Why not? So when I discovered this above creation – why, I couldn’t pass up a teal and orange plow contrasted with pink snow. And so I am sharing, just because.
Maybe it will make you groan and shake your head, but maybe it will make you smile a bit, too. I hope it’s the latter. Anyway – now that I’ve enjoyed my pink wintry scene, I’ll be on my way. 
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This is not a typical sunrise, but this will have to do as my sunrise of the day. And maybe yours, too. (Sunrise du Jour?)
After months of below freezing weather and record breaking snowfall, the temperatures crawled into the mid 40s Sunday. Heat wave, I know. But Mother Nature knows I’ve been on her case and she isn’t ready to play nice quite yet. So we are having heavy thunderstorms as I write this in the middle of the night, actually early Monday morning, and the temps are dropping. Of course!
Guaranteed frozen winter-land in the morning! Ice skating roads and overloaded tree branches. 100% guaranteed!
Anyway. Wherever you have landed on this mystifying revolving orb, enjoy your sunrise and the day it promises. And if you need to borrow my industrial-strength sunrise this morning, by all means. Feel free. Any way you look at it, it’s a good thing.
When you see day break, it’s a definite sign you’ve made it through one more night. And that. my friends, is a very good thing.
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