Easing back in

I've been away from my blog so long that I feel like a stranger.  And the truth is that I've been away from my garden far too long as well.  The absolutely necessary chores have been attended to.  The birds are fed, the mulch and compost have been spread, the irises transplanted. The summer weeds were pulled (though the winter ones are now taking over).  But my emotional energy was spent in other places this last year.  Not only did I fail to write about the garden, I took fewer pictures.  It feels as though I missed both summer and fall.  My heart was elsewhere.
Blogging is like so many other things - the longer you neglect it, the harder it is to remember why you were doing it in the first place.
But I DO remember - I remember that all I wanted from this blog was a convenient way to keep a garden diary.  And I remember that it became so much more than that - it became a link to a supportive network from all over the world, thanks largely to Blotanical.  A link to inspiration, information, entertainment, encouragement and so much more.  That network is still out there, of course, but I've removed myself from it.  When I don't post, I don't read much either.  I've missed it.
So - I'm easing back in.  This week I carried my camera with me when I took Marty for his morning walk.

Around this corner

there are great mounds of forsythia that have already begun to bloom.

And just next door this early blooming tree (an Eastern redbud?)  

has already shed many of it's fragrant blossoms.

The early morning light brightens my spirits after several gray and dreary days.

As do the crocuses and the hyacinths 

peaking up from beneath the leaves.

It is still winter, but my spirits are lifted thinking about what's to come.

"Every gardener knows that under the cloak of winter lies a miracle ... a seed waiting to sprout, a bulb opening to the light, a bud straining to unfurl. And the anticipation nurtures our dream."

- Barbara Winkler

Tweak, tweak, tweak

My, what big eyes you have!

Tweak:  to adjust; fine tune.
I don't think this little skipper needs to fine tune anything, do you?  He's just there to get your attention, since I don't have anything to illustrate my subject matter.  (Read to the end though, and you'll find links to pictures.)

Tweaking is what I've been doing to my blog since I became serious about posting to it sometime last summer.  Until that time, "Ginny's garden" was a convenient way to share some pictures with a few family members and friends.  My original goal was to use the blog as an online diary and plant record, primarily to record what was blooming when and to give myself some perspective on how things were changing over time.

But then I found Blotanical and other garden blogs and was inspired.  I changed my header and my layout.  I added gadgets to my sidebar.  I took many more pictures - so many more that my husband complained that I was wearing out the camera.  (I bought my own camera in August - though I still like to use our shared SLR sometimes.)
And recently I added additional pages.  You'll see the tabs just under the header:

• Garden Diary:  This page is a record of what I've been doing in the garden and what the weather has been like.  It's in reverse chronological order with the newest entries first.  Maybe not too interesting for readers, but useful for me.
• Blog Hopping:  This pages contains links to all the blogs linked together for blog hop.  Check this out and join in.
• What grows in my garden:  Here are pictures with identification of many of the plants in my garden.  Most of the pictures were taken at the peak season, so the plants are shown at their best.  Unfortunately, I was pretty far into this page before I thought of how nice it would be to have the plants in alphabetical order.  Or perhaps in seasonal order.  But they're neither - they're just random.  Maybe I'll redo this one over the winter.
• Resources:  You'll find links to web resources on this page.  Many of them are resources especially helpful for gardeners in the Carolinas, but there are some general ones as well.  I'll be adding to this page as I find more resources.  If you have resource recommendations, please pass them on!

My big winter project will be a page chronicling the history of my garden.  After that's set up, I'll update it at least annually.    Meanwhile, I hope you'll check out my other pages.  And then hop on over and check out the most recent post on my other blog, The Blessing Bowl.  You might learn a little more about me there.