Foovay's Cauldron

The things I think about…

Been a lot of activity on the Spring Coloring Pages lens for the last couple of weeks so I thought I ought to add some new coloring pages. So I asked on Twitter what people think of when they think of spring. Flowers, baby animals, rain, Easter, St. Patricks Day were some of the answers.

Here in the desert spring means the migrant birds passing though again on their way back south. The doves are cooing incessantly already for their mating season. The traditional spring bulbs don’t actually do very well here and most of the wildflowers bloom in the winter when there is water. The mesquite is the first plant to put out new leaves.

Here in America we never notice how our thinking of “how things are” or should be is influenced by the fact that the first Americans never made it past the Maxon Dixon line, and most of them are from kinder climates anyway. Places where spring is flowers and green grass and baby bunnies (which we probably won’t see here until May or June). People who move to the desert, and even many who were raised here complain about the differences as if the desert were just WRONG because spring here is not like spring in New England. My first husbands family – from New York and Pennsylvania – never stopped complaining that it never snowed in Oklahoma in the winter. Not like three feet deep stay on the ground for months snow. Look at any Christmas card – what do we think Christmas means? Winter snow on the evergreens and Cardinals in every tree, right? Not here.

But most people move to the southwest FOR the warmer, drier weather. Then complain when the seasons do not match those at home.

The desert is different. You love it, or you don’t. You accept it, or you don’t. (It doesn’t really care) But if you do open your heart and eyes to a different kind of beauty, the magic will transform you.

A roadrunner came from behind me, under the porch, and then ran out in front of me before he noticed me sitting on the porch with my coffee this morning. He stopped, turned, glared at me – then squatted and puffed up his feathers, holding his wings out beside his body to make himself about three times the bird he was a minute before. Just so I knew he was a pretty tough bird, ya know. He held that posture for a few minutes, then trotted casually off into the brush. Moments like this remind me why I love it here.

Spring means roadrunners are once again hunting their favorite foods – lizards and snakes. I’ve actually seen a lizard out running around on Christmas Day here.

You probably know that I started Color-Your-Own.com as a free line art site for players of the Orbis games. I still play, mostly at SandboxFarms where you can create animals to share with the world. Recently I created some new varieties of service dogs, including cadaver dogs, bomb sniffing dogs, arson and drug sniffing dogs, and search and rescue dogs. Long as I’m at it, I am creating coloring pages for them, too. I’ll be adding those all week so if you are interested, just check out the coloring pages blog.

I may have told you, but if not The Best Vegetarian Lasagna ever is hubbys first recipe to be shared online and on Squidoo. Check it out – it is delicious. Look forward to more as he gets out of that job and onto a new life.

Well, time to feed dinner outside. Hope you had a great Valentine’s Day and a good week ahead.

Summer Solstice Greeting Cards