Invitation to be Outside

Flower photos by Linda Wilson

Today is just one of those days — glorious days — that thrills all your senses and makes you think up every excuse to be outside, that is if you need an excuse. Here we are entering into the autumn season and the tress are giving their first hints of changes in color. The trumpet announces a panorama of crystal clear blue skies and the clouds are playing hide and seek, nowhere to be found. The temperatures are in the mid 70s and breezes are calm and gentle.

Linda Wilson,  in Austin Texas, is my life-long friend and she occasionally sends me a gorgeous gallery of her Texas garden flowers. Since we cannot tip-toe through the tulips until next spring, I will share her summer garden glory.

And I will let the pictures do the talking…..and the singing. I just think I can hear a song when I look at these images.

This is my very favorite flower image. I don’t know the names of my flowers very well, but if that is a morning glory, I have a beautiful poem I wrote long ago with which I would pair this image.

I don’t know what the Texas sky looked like this morning, but I will finish this garden tour with giving you two images of the Michigan sky today.

The first one is taken by Christine Kidd DiCesare of the northern Michigan early morning skyscape.

And a photo I took after 10 am this morning from my deck confirms that it is such a lovely day that even the moon really did not want to go to bed.

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Linda’s Texas Garden

 

Orange Hibiscus

Linda Wilson is a good, long-time endearing friend to me. Another one of my truly rare BFF’s and we go back quite a ways. Forty-six years, to be exact, as in one week Tom and I will have been married that L O N G.  (He’s one of my star BFF’s too!)

                                                     Canna

Linda and her husband, Tom, and daughter Beth Ann lived just down the street from where we lived in our first apartment in Lexington, Kentucky. Having moved down to the “border-state” from the North, we really knew no-one, but Tom Wilson had started work at IBM the same day as my Tom did. It wasn’t long before, our telephone was ringing and we were being invited over to play cards on a Saturday night at the Wilson’s.

After our first daughter Laura was born, Linda took “new mother, Sue,” under her wings and we shared lots of time together as stay-at-home moms with our “big sister, Beth” showing toddler Laura the ropes.

 

When second daughter Kathleen made her debut, Laura had her “second mom” home at the Wilson’s during my hospital stay. Linda’s husband Tom was especially fond of Laura and enjoyed playing with Beth and Laura together. On one Saturday morning, enjoying a bit of a sleep-in Tom and Linda heard a “sun-salutation” from the Beth’s bedroom, even though they were not yoga officianados —   “Look, Laura, the sun is up, it’s time to start another day!!!” Oh, that we could keep that amazement in our hearts at the dawning of the day as we grow older!

Linda and Tom moved to Austin, Texas before we moved from Lexington in 1976. I missed my friend, because even though we had moved from our apartment, we still did not live far from their house once we built our first home. I must have never looked at the color of her thumb for it certainly must be green!

We have kept in touch over all these years and just lately she sent me a group of photos and invited me to take a walk in her back yard — a little bit of heaven. And that’s what you’ve been doing, as you’ve read through this post. You’ve been looking at the beauty in Linda’s backyard garden.

Curtiss Ann, I hope you enjoy this!

Thanks for the treat, Linda.

All floral photography credit:  Linda Wilson 

 

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