Spring flowers

There are signs of spring in our garden already. I know for those of you it may be hard to believe. Especially after hearing the ground hog forecast calling for six more weeks of winter. Here are some spring flowers to cheer all those cold spirits to all those who read my blog.

Southern California features two distinct seasons spring and yes, summer. I just love spring but it would be wonderful to have beautiful fall trees during fall and not winter as it is here in most cases.

Today in our Nature Studies I told the kids to find something of color and sketch it. Dancer chose to sketch these beautiful flowers that are now in bloom.

Sport chose to sketch our dying red bell peppers. They did not survive our freak hail storm we had a few weeks back. What we did find interesting is tiny aphids crawling on a bell pepper leaf. Those nasty little critters. We looked them up and read about them in our Nature Handbook by Comstock. They are nasty but very interesting. The kids learned that there are two different type of female aphids. Those that have wings and those without. The ones with the wings give birth to eggs and the ones without wings give birth to live aphids. Sport wasn't too sure if they could still be called an insect but maybe they should be considered a mammal. After close examination of the legs, counting six, it is definitely an insect.

I just love the small purple blossoms on the Rosemary.

Daffodils and tulips are one of my favorite flowers. Daffodils always seem so happy. Shinning for spring and reminding me of Easter that is soon to come.

Take care my friends spring will be here Real Soon!