more blooming moments

Early spring in East Tennessee offers an interesting variety of colors in flora and fauna – there were six spectacular blue jays around the bird feeder on Saturday morning, and who flew in but a Red-bellied woodpecker – as brilliantly-colored as the painted illustration in this web link!  He was really sporting his Tennessee orange.  Sadly, I didn’t have the camera with me, but I hope to capture some pics if I see him again.  I also enjoy evening visits from three pairs of doves, along with several cardinals and the usual assortment of songbirds.  They are emptying the bird feeder about every 30 hours right now!

Here are just a few more blooming pictures I couldn’t resist – if you can identify them, please comment for me.  I’m hopeful that I might see a tulip or two – a few leaves have poked up through the earth, but no sight of a bloom yet.

We are amazingly close to the time of the Dogwood Arts Festival ~ can hardly wait!  NO MORE FROST, PLEASE.

~Janet @ The Christmas Place

Food for Friday

Hey, it’s the first day of spring here in the northern hemisphere, and we couldn’t be happier!  It’s been a lovely, sunny day – just a bit nippy, still, frost expected overnight – but we’ll take it!  Since we’re coming up on longer days, days when we’ll want to spend more hours out of doors, not hanging around a hot kitchen, I grabbed the Gooseberry Patch Fast Fix Meals cookbook this afternoon (ask for item 722025).

From the Speedy Sides section, here’s a really easy side dish from Keersten Jensen, Idaho Falls, ID.  Let me quote her introduction:

One day while I was in college, I tried this recipe because I didn’t have the ingredients to make fried rice.  When I took a taste, I couldn’t get enough of it!  I have been making this rice for over 20 years now.  It’s especially good with chicken…we like it hot or cold!

Good enough for me to share with you…

Colorful Rice Toss

2 C instant rice, uncooked
2 C boiling water
1 to 2 T butter
1 onion, chopped
8 oz bottle zesty Italian salad dressing
1 tomato, chopped

Stir rice into boiling water; cover and let stand for 5 minutes, or until water is absorbed.  Melt butter in a frying pan over medium heat; cook onion until translucent.  Add rice to pan; pour salad dressing over, stirring to coat.  Remove from heat and stir in tomato.  Serve warm or chilled.  Serves 4 to 6.
C = Cup, T = Tablespoon

When I was in college, I just had one of those single-eye heating units and an immersion heater to boil water in a cup for instant soup.  Keersten sure ate better than I did!

From the Christmas Place gardens

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold; when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.           ~Charles Dickens

Happy First Day of Spring!

~Janet @ The Christmas Place

Two for Tuesday

I’m just moving a little slow in the cold we’ve had to start the week…that’s my story and I’m sticking to it…that, and I was distracted by this other big thing that happened yesterday…

Our Custom Floral Department is certainly thinking spring already!  Check out the magnificent spring tree they have created.  It features a giant grapevine wreath at the top, illuminated by a strand of flower lights that cascade to the base of the evergreen Christmas tree.  The rest of the tree is accented with brilliant green, pink, and purple ribbons, flowers, birds, and leaf sprays.  Be sure you catch that little white rabbit hiding behind a flower cluster about two feet from the base of the tree.  Anticipation!

Continuing on the theme of spring, here’s a colorful tabletop decoration featuring a fuchsia bird!  These were very popular for Christmas tree decorating this year, but you can extend the life of such ornaments with a little creativity and a handful of spring greenery.  I’m including a close up of the feathered fellow – he’s just a little sparkly, too.

“No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow.

Life is good!

~Janet @ The Christmas Place

April Showers – April Flowers!

While Christmas is our theme all year ’round, we take pleasure in celebrating every season of the year.  One of the promises of Christmas is the hope of new life, and spring ushers in the joy and beauty of this hope.  The Floral staff at Christmas Place are busy creating breathtaking arrangements in silk, highlighting the brightest and freshest spring colors.  Here is a sampling.

 

Customers can purchase floral stems, ribbons, greens, and vases to create their own arrangements, as well as taking advantage of our own designers’ creativity.

Our Floral team also works on Christmas arrangements throughout the year, using an outstanding selection of the most popular silks and velvets, ribbons and greens, and glittering garnishments in new color themes each year.  Here’s an arrangement of platinum crushed velvet poinsettias with gold and blush pink accents that will add elegance and glamour to any table or mantle.

The Floral Design team also creates many personalized arrangements for customers. Call or come in to order a wreath, vase or swag designed to match your own decor.

~Janet @ The Christmas Place

 

Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage

April 23-27, 2008

The 58^th Annual Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is coming up at the end of next month, and you need to register here now.  On-line and phone registration close on April 14^th, after which it’s on-site registration only starting on April 23^rd.

This annual 5-day event hosted by the Park and several other groups in the area includes walks, hikes, motorcades, armchair tours (love that!), art classes, and seminars on the wildflower, flora, fauna, and natural history of the area.  While most events take place outdoors in the Park, some are presented at locations in and around Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  In addition to short hikes and walks, there are also backcountry tours for more seasoned hikers- I’m not there yet.

From my research:  Registration is $25 for one day or $40 for two or more days.  Some events may charge an additional fee.  When you register, if the event number you want is not listed in the drop-down list of numbers, then that event is full.  I missed getting into wildflower sketching – I’ll have to be faster next year!

Here are some of the topics that will be covered over the five days of the Pilgrimage:  (deep breath)  birding, moth and insect walks; wildflower walks and hikes; fern walks; trees of the area; wildflower photography; black bear and wild hog hike; Seasons on the Trail; moss walk; native plant propagation; salamander foray (slippery?); Smoky Mountain Spring; backcountry wildflower hike; tree and shrub identification walk; featured wildflower artist reception; Herb Lore of Appalachia; Ecosystems of Insect-eating Bats; nighttime natural history walk; nighttime spider walk (ooo, creepy!); morning bird walk; motorcades; wildflower sketching (full already…); wildflower identification for beginners; Forest and Foods Pharmacy; reptiles and amphibians; bugs and butterflies; fungi and lichens; An Appalachian Evening of Music, Songs, and Storytelling; animal tracking and signs; aquatic insects; exotic plant and wildflower walk; Armchair Tour of Cades Cove. 

See what I mean?  You simply must register now and sign up for some events.  Sure hope I see you there!

Janet@ The Christmas Place  

I just had to include this picture of wild turkeys – on my drive in to work this morning, one of these flew across the road right in front of my car as I was about to cross the bridge below Douglas Dam.  Aren’t they beautiful?

In Anticipation of Spring

Enjoy a few minutes in anticipation of spring… 

It’s spring fever.  That is what the name of it is.  And when you’ve got it, you want – oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!  ~Mark Twain

The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created Spring.  ~Bern Williams

I think that no matter how old or infirm I may become, I will always plant a large garden in the spring.  Who can resist the feelings of hope and joy that one gets from participating in nature’s rebirth?  ~Edward Giobbi

Is it so small a thing to have enjoyed the sun, to have lived light in the spring, to have loved, to have thought, to have done?  ~Matthew Arnold

I love better to count time from spring to spring; it seems to me far more cheerful to reckon the year by blossoms than by blight. ~Donald G. Mitchell

The beautiful spring came; and when Nature resumes her loveliness, the human soul is apt to revive also.  ~Harriet Ann Jacobs

The true harbinger of spring is not crocuses or swallows returning to Capistrano, but the sound of the bat on the ball.  ~Bill Veeck

The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month. ~Henry Van Dyke

Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems.  ~Rainer Maria Rilke

Nothing is so beautiful as spring – when weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring the ear, it strikes like lightning to hear him sing. ~Gerard Manley Hopkins

Every spring is the only spring, a perpetual astonishment.  ~Ellis Peters

Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. ~Kenneth Grahame

You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.  ~Pablo Neruda

~Janet @ The Christmas Place