Celebrate Spring!

 I was away and without internet on the actual first day of spring, yet don't for a moment think that I am not enjoying the wonderful reawakening of springtime treasures!

Soon after returning home, I cut these daffodils from our yard to enjoy indoors while we had a few rainy, dreary days.

After all these years of being retired, I still find things I enjoy teaching. It was always my practice to share this Wordsworth poem with students when daffodils were blooming. I thought I'd share it here with you today. Enjoy!

You might have to click on the image and enlarge in order to read it.

Today I am spending time with two long-time English teacher cohorts! Lunch with Sharon and Dee is on the agenda. We always have such great conversations when we are together!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Finally!!

We have had an unusually long winter here in southern Ohio. The weatherman I listen to says we had one of the coldest months (March) on record. So we are now enjoying a bit of warmer weather. And with warmer temps, we finally have daffodils!!

I can never see a daffodil patch without thinking of the wonderful William Wordsworth poem, which I know I shared last spring, but I feel compelled to rerun it. Celebrate Spring!

Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

As the story goes, Wordsworth wrote this poem in 1804 after taking a walk with his sister and happening upon a "long belt" of daffodils in England's beautiful Lake District. I dream of going there in April to see those daffodils. Sigh, maybe someday.

In the meantime, I will quilt! I have a bit of trimming to do. I've got my stacks of HSTs here and I am tackling them a stack at a time.

 

The colors remind me of the tropics - Key West or Florida, perhaps. Those citrus-y colors along with those ocean blues. Perfect for a quilt called Kissing Fishes, I think.

 

Happy Quilting, Friends!

 

 

Early Daffodils

On several different posts this winter, I've alluded to the unusually warm weather we've had. This week, for example, the last week of winter and the first week of spring, I have the a/c turned on, as the outside temperature is over 80 degrees! Unheard of! In a normal spring, I try to wait until late May or early June to switch on the a/c. The unseasonable temps have had the wonderful bonus of early blooms!

Every time I see daffodils in great masses like this, I am reminded of the Wordsworth poem, "Daffodils."

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.      

We visited William Wordsworth's home in Grasmere in The Lake District in July of 2006,  well past the daffodil season. How I would love to go when they are in bloom!

Emma is home from college this week on Spring Break. Many of her classmates are in Florida, but we are having weather just as pleasant here in O-HI-O!