Positively Spring Life

by Mauverneen

“It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.”  - Rainer Maria Rilke

      To think of Spring is to generally think of flowers, and trees bursting into bloom and grass becoming green again. And rain. It is a time of new life. Not only for the plants, but for the animal world. Babies of the animal world arrive in spring - calves and lambs and geese and squirrels and birds....

      I am waiting for the day the mama deer will bring her babies out very early one of these mornings to let them play in the open field. I drive to the park where mother goose takes her babies for a swim. 

      Here at the house a robin has built a nest in a rose bush that climbs the wall just outside my back door. I would never have noticed it except that I passed too close one morning and she flew out suddenly, scaring us both. I tend to give a wide pass now to the rose bush and the nest. I want Mrs. Robin to be comfortable and to hatch those babies. She does leave occasionally, to find food I suspect. When she does I have taken the opportunity to rush over and take a quick peek into the nest. At first it was bare - just brown twigs. Then, lo and behold I saw four blue eggs! Today I peeked again. I saw no blue, but something soft and feathery. I will keep you posted!  

“The bird dares to break the shell, then the shell breaks open and the bird can fly openly. This is the simplest principle of success. You dream, you dare and you fly.”   - Israelmore Ayivor

As always, words and photos are my own, and require permission to reprint.

However, feel free to share the blog in it's entirety. In fact, I encourage it!

Coming Soon!   MauveOnTheMove.  My travel blog!
 See more photos at http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/1-mauverneen-blevins.html

                      and visit my website: http://mauverneen.com

Positively Nothing for Granted

by Mauverneen

It’s hard to imagine life without a lot of the things we take for granted. Transportation for instance.

 Late last summer I traveled to Utah to visit my oldest daughter and her husband, who had just moved to Park City. We spent a wonderful day in Salt Lake City viewing an auto museum, seeing a couple of  beautiful mansions, having lunch and visiting the Mormon Tabernacle, to which we made a return visit on Sunday morning to be part of the live broadcast of the famed Mormon Tabernacle Choir. If you are ever able to witness that, do not pass it up.  It is both inspirational and awe-inspiring. 

But what stuck in my mind most was something else. Something that would have been easy to miss.

The Mormon Tabernacle is part of a complex also containing the Temple, an assembly hall, and of course a museum - all worth seeing. There are also some monuments and sculptures in various spots throughout the grounds. One such was the monument to the Mormon handcart pioneers. Those intrepid souls that crossed an unwelcoming, harsh land to establish a new city.

Here is the inscription:

"The Handcart Pioneer Monument is a tribute to the thousands of hardy Mormon pioneers who, because they could not afford the larger ox-drawn wagons, walked across the rugged plains in the 1850s, pulling and pushing all of their possessions in handmade, all-wood handcarts. Some 250 died on the journey, but nearly 3,000, mostly British converts, completed the 1,350-mile trek from Iowa City, Iowa."

They walked. Walked. 1,350 miles. With all of their belongings, and sometimes their children, on a tiny cart. 

Indeed it is hard to imagine life without a lot of the things we take for granted. Transportation for instance. 

As always, words and photos are my own, and require permission to reprint.

However, feel free to share the blog in it's entirety. In fact, I encourage it!  

 See more photos at http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/1-mauverneen-blevins.html

                      and visit my website: http://mauverneen.com