Spring went straight into summer.  I was gone a week.  I know summer still has five weeks to go but that is the way it seemed.  The big lilac bush bloomed while I was gone.  There was new growth all over the place.  All this in a week.  I noticed the two patio tomato plants grew quite a bit.  I still have not carefully inspected the garden.  I am sure there are other changes.  It has become the time of year I just wear tee shirts and shorts.  Pretty soon I will be putting back the air conditioner in the bedroom.  We discarded the thick blanket and the fan ran all night.

There is nothing like home sweet home.  I was gone for a week visiting an old friend.  My wife was “sigless”.  In the interim, the trees have become greener and the temperature had gotten a little warmer.  The lilac bush is abloom.  I really have to walk around my yard to note the changes.  It has not gotten too hot yet so the primrose still are blooming.  I am just glad to be home.  I can make my own morning coffee just the way I like to and play my own music any time I want to.  I noted, again, how beautiful the area I live in is.  We can get too comfortable in our own surrounding.  It is good to get away once in awhile.  You appreciate your wife and your immediate surroundings better.

It has been snowing for awhile and everything is white.  The snow is a wet, heavy one.  I have never seen our lilac bush so bent.  I am not going anywhere so I might as well enjoy the scenery viewed from my back and front window.  The branches of trees are all bent by the weight of the snow.  It is only an half a dozen times a year I might see the white landscape.  I made sure my bird feeder was full this morning with sunflower seed.  I know the birds have to forage a little harder in the snow but they have to eat, too.

Every time I view that empty nest in the lilac bush I wonder how a bird could have made it and raised little ones in plain sight and I never noticed it last year.  The nest was smaller than a robin would have made.  It had to have been a small bird and I wonder the identity of that bird.  Every time I see the empty nest I wonder what else am I missing right in front of my nose.  All I can do is keep my eyes and hears (!! ears !!) open and await my next discovery.

I became aware I never saw the bird nest in the lilac bush on the border of our driveway.  I looked at the nest and realized it came from a smaller bird than a robin.

Fifteen feet away a scarlet tanager nested in a box for the second year in a row although I only saw it once or twice but I never noticed the other nest.

And wondered what kind of bird was it and why did I miss it only mere steps from our front door?  Why was I that preoccupied that I did not spot the nest?

That seems to happen every year:  deciduous trees reveal their nests after they are stripped of leaves.  I always wonder why I did not spot the nests even when they are nearby.