May already!

The sight of an Indigo Bunting feeding at my friend, Audrey's feeder, will help me remember this special day, my daughter's 18th birthday! She is with her classmates on their senior trip to VA this weekend, so I will celebrate her birth with a few memories...I can clearly remember walking around the yard, the evening she was born, and marvelling at how soft her newborn skin felt as she lay on my tummy for the first time. Images of her birthdays blend together in memory, the cute blue dress she wore when a toddler,her hair tousled and curly, the sunflower dress at her pinata party with school friends (her hair in long braids down her back), a gang of preteen girls romping up the hill behind us like wild horses, picking daffodil bouquets to take home, and her 16th birthday picnic at State park when she drove for the first time in the parking lot...





Wildflowers are in bloom and I'll have to identify them with an old guidebook It's been awhile since I matched names to specific blooms; sometimes it's enough to admire them just for the sake of their natural beauty of just being there on the woodland floor, and sometimes it's nice to call them by name. The shadbush in the lower field is in full bloom. Mom always liked to have a few branches for a Spring bouquet when she hosted bridge club parties.









Dad just celebrated his 90th birthday on April 29th. He's often told us the story that the creek near their home was flooding around the time his Mom gave birth. We've also heard the story of his most memorable 4th birthday when he and his older sister, Clarice, walked two miles home from church and when he got home happily discovered that his mom had baked a yellow cake with chocolate frosting to honor his special day. He was the middle child of eleven kids, and he is the last surviving brother of nine boys. His youngest sister, (Edna) Ruth, whom we all called Aunt John, because she was a certified tomboy with so many older brothers, helped him celebrate this year at a family gathering at my cousin' (Sherry's) home in PA. Earlier this week, I made Dad a double-sized lemon merangue pie and my brother, Gary, came down from Camillus to help us celebrate. This is our birthday season- my best friend's birthday is also today, and soon we'l celebrate Gary's 62nd birthday and my oldest son's 25th one!