Thursday, May 21, 2020

thankful thursday


The tulips are planted in a small perennial bed by the barn paddock, where I pass them multiple times every day and very often stop to admire them. I've posted several photographs and sketches of the first tulips of the year.

You may recognize this one. It was the very first:



The first few tulips provided joy day after day after day, surviving very cold nights and even a snowstorm. The colors have surprised me by changing over time -
some becoming lighter, others deeper.


After the first week or so, I often considered putting them in a vase.

Three had reached the stage of being more open than closed in the evening,
when we got the multiple-storm and tornado warning.


 Thinking that strong winds would shred these very-open tulips, I finally cut the stems and put the flowers in a vase on the porch, where I could enjoy them. Considering that every paddock and garden is currently scattered with branches that came down in that storm, it was a good decision.

For several days, the tulips opened more and more.
Don't you love the way tulips stay beautiful even as they become fully "blown"?
They simply begin to look like a different flower, one with wide open petals.


But yesterday I turned the vase slightly,
and instantly most of the petals fell into my hand.



Imagine how fragile the connection must have become.



Still...


...beautiful.


~~~~~