Good Morning!

I see a lot of sunrises, walking the dog.  All of them are good, but this one was magnificent!  

Zoe's Kitchen

A restaurant just opened up serving mediterranean food.  Very shiny and new...Zoe's Kitchen.

Dessert

Sign seen outside an Italian restaurant in Lafayette Village, Raleigh.

Bluebird

These birds are just sooo blue that they are startling to the eye!

Longleaf pine

The needles on a longleaf pine are so long they look like fountains of needles.

Sugar sweet

Reading the side of the cup at Panera, I saw that a 20 oz of regular cola has 17.25 teaspoons of sugar.  Hm, well of course I had to see how much that really is.  There's the 20 oz cup (all the way to the top,) and there's 17.25 teaspoons of sugar.  So how many of us would just pour 1/3 cup of sugar in a glass and drink it down? But we do that everytime we order a medium cola...!

Wind machine

Peeking over a fence I found this really cool wind machine on the patio.  Each circle turns separately in the breeze, in the opposite direction.  I finally caught it with the circles lined up.

Little sculptures in the NC museum of art

We found some small sculptures in the West building of the NC Museum of Art.

This sculpture is carefully balanced so that any little bit of wind makes it sway.  You can get it to move if you blow (but be careful not to get too close or the guards come over)

This lady is trapped in a spiral hanging from the ceiling.  

This one looks like the string pictures we made in elementary school. or a ship's sail.

Frost on the kale

Kale is a very photogenic vegetable.  Here's the frost on the Kale in the cold morning.  

Snow blossoms

I'm still stuck on snow day pictures.  This is a Red Bud tree, but it looks like it's blooming Crab apple.

Sign of spring? or just wishful thinking

The riding mowers are on display already at Home Depot.  Does that mean that spring is around the corner?  

Reflection

Reflections on the retention pond at the NC museum of art.

After the snow

The sky was clear after yesterday's snow.  We got about 6 inches and it was a cold 15 degrees at sunrise.  

The roads were still bad, but walking was fine.

It looked more like the North Woods than North Carolina

Once the sun came out it was spectacular.

Another snow day!

The weatherman said that the snow would start at 9 am...and the first flakes came down at 9 am! By 10:30 the trash pickup suspended service.

Schools were closed, people had already mobbed the grocery stores  looking for milk and bread. 

By late afternoon the roads were mucky and slick.  But it was really pretty.

Snow on the Magnolia!

Veggie surfing

We were in line at a new fast food salad restaurant called CHOPT when I noticed the wall paper.  These little dudes are surfing fruits and veggies.  (I'm not sure they actually serve okra, but he seems to find it surfable...)

Serenade

Is he serenading her?

I think so.  They stand on either side of  the door to El Tapatio Mexican restaurant in Wakefield.

Stepping Stones

These stepping stones, outside the garden at Durant Nature Park must have been an art class project.  Some of them were surely done by adults, while others must have been the kids' project.  

Rocky Point

The trail is called the Rocky Point Loop.  It meets Falls lake at this point before it loops back.  I think we could call this Rocky Point...

Sun on a cloudy day

The day started out with bright sun.  By mid afternoon the sun had to work hard to be seen through the cloudy sky.

Now that we have solar panels, we watch the sun a lot more closely!

Brown Thrasher

Thrasher is a good name for these birds.  They thrash around in the fallen leaves. 

icy branch

Icy branch by the side of Falls Lake.

Sand sculptures

The frozen sand by the side of Falls Lake made unusual patterns.  It looks like the ice crystals pushed up through the sand...?

Icy Falls Lake

It finally warmed up enough to take a walk in the park!  It was 40 degrees yesterday!  We went out to Forest Ridge Park and found that Falls Lake has frozen over!  We also found some great icicles on the water's edge.

It's STILL cold!

It was 6 degrees yesterday morning...warm by Minnesota standards, but here in the South not so much.

This picture is from last winter, but this little junco looks the way I feel right now...COLD!

Back in the garden

The sensory and nature play garden at Durant Nature Park is a great place to exercise imagination.

Welcome to the garden

Off to the side, out of the usual way, there is a garden for children at Durant Nature Park.  

It has a "fairy village" where the kids can build little houses, a play area, and a wind chime.