April Recap: Challenge, Friends and Dreaming's Doings

April went by in a flash. The A to Z Challenge kept me on my toes and kept me busy while the snow was blowing outside. Yes, I did say snow!

April 16

We had a visitor!

Flat "Malia" came in the middle of one of our storms.

I made her a snow suit so she could play in the snow.

It was too cold to stay out for long!

We have had crazy weather, with weekly (Yes... I do mean weekly) snow storms! And not to be outdone, May is coming in with her own storm. We are expecting 4-8 inches of snow. It began last night and will run through today. Our poor plants - although I am sure they like the moisture, each storm has come with bitter cold and blowing snow.

April 10

Snow covers the tent I made over our tulip bed.

The same tulip bed on April 28.

 Tulips that I dug up and divided last year dot another garden.

I covered as many perennials as I could to try to protect them from the 20 degree weather. Hopefully rain that came at the beginning of the storm may have created ice blankets for the buds on our trees. A few have tried to leaf out and were burned badly in other storms. We'll just have to see how things go. There isn't much I can do about it - fretting won't help a thing! 

Between snow storms we have had some wonderful weather. We found time to take a few bike rides.

We saw Mr. Red Fox on a bike ride through a Denver area neighborhood. He was enjoying the fine spring day, too! It was so warm, he was trying to sneak a drink of water from this drain pipe.

We visited the zoo. This 450 pound silverback was on a quest to find spinach that had just been placed in piles throughout his enclosure.

I took Clyde to see my dad. Clyde is the sweetest Golden Retriever. He belongs to my house sitter friend.

Dad seemed to like the fact that Clyde wanted to warm his toes!

We also went to the Botanic Gardens. The snow storms and cold weather burned a lot of their plants, too.

Despite the freeze, there were flowers out and the bees were in a frenzy to harvest nectar.

The A to Z Challenge was great fun. It was a challenge, for sure! Trying to come up with something for each letter of the alphabet was tricky, and by sticking to the topic of our motorhome trip, it was even more of a challenge. I have included links to each of my blog posts below, just in case you missed one or two!

Reading others' posts for the A to Z challenge was the fun part of the challenge. I enjoyed randomly visiting different blogs and seeing what the blog author had to say for a letter. There were 1656 participating blogs by the end of the month, so the possibilities seemed endless. I "met" new friends, and I have also had new friends follow me. I'd like to welcome the new challenge followers. You can find out more about them by clicking on their "Member" icon on my sidebar, or visiting their blogs. They include:

Rowena who writes Designs by Row

Phillip who writes Ariel's Jottings

Sopphey Vance

Judy

Damyanti who writes Amlokiblogs

and

Sylvia Ney

A to Z Challenge Posts

A. Allegro to Zephyr

B. Off the Beaten Path

C. Cooking and Cacti

D. Desert Museum

E. Eeeeek!

F. Flying High

G. Grocery Shopping

H. Hilton Head & Huge

I. Iron-y

J. Jump

K. Kamping

L. Louisiana

M. Memorable Museums

N. National Park Passport

O. Orchards

P. A Perfect Place

Q. Queensland

R. Rally

S. State Parks

T. Tuckered Out

U. Uh-Oh

V. Van Horn, TX

W. White Sands Missile Range

X. Xylography

Y. Yes

Z. ZBV

So I bid April good-bye, and look forward to May and whatever she will bring. Happy spring to you!

A Post in Appreciation

I write my blog for me. I don't know why I feel like I should spew out mundane things. Perhaps it is because of that English teacher who said I couldn't write. Maybe I'm still trying to make a point. But I also enjoy getting feedback from friends and followers - well, maybe because they are positive and not like that English teacher! (Yes, he really did say that. And, 40 years later, when I saw him at my HS reunion, my stomach still did flip-flops and turned inside out!) It has been so interesting to meet people through my blogging. I love that I have friends, many most of whom I have never met, but I feel like I know them and that they know me! Thank you, all, for checking out what I have to say now and then, and for letting me know your thoughts. Thank you, also, for not pointing out errors in grammar or punctuation, or spelling!!!

I noticed I have new followers and would like to thank them for stopping by and caring to read my posts.

Thank you, Laurie! Laurie is a new face-to-face friend. We met over horse poop; outside, in the paddock, picking up after horses. What an amazing world it is as we discovered how many things we have in common.

Mary is also a new follower. She bumped into me while chatting on the farmhouse porch ;-)  Another blogger, Patrice at Everyday Rurality, has a weekly link-up where bloggers can respond to questions and link them to Patrice's site. Then, bloggers can read other's responses to the questions. It is almost like visiting one another. Mary writes Visits with Mary, and Waiting at the Gate.

From Mary's header - this sure reminds me of the south!

Another new follower is Mimi Foxmorton. I love her name! Mimi is so inspirational. She is very artistic - something I aspire to be! She writes a number of blogs and shares so much beauty in them. One is called Sea Gypsy and another is called Collage Pirate. I'll create a bit of mystery here by suggesting you visit one of Mimi's sites and then travel to others that I haven't listed!

Found on Mimi's header for Collage Pirate

My latest follower is Alica. She pens Happily Married... to the Cows. I have a fascination with dairy cows, well, to be honest, I guess with all cows. Perhaps that fascination has its roots in my visits to my grandfather's ranch as a young girl, or maybe it is just that I've wondered how cows can lick their own noses! Whatever, I totally admire dairy farmers and the twice, daily work they do to bring us fresh milk and milk products! Alica also lives in Lancaster, PA and reports that she is from a long line of Mennonites. The Amish and the Mennonites also are a fascination of mine. I love nothing more than visiting Amish areas and talking with a few Amish I have gotten to know through my horses.

Header for Alica's Blog

I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday. It is time for me to get to work! I have so many things to do to get ready for the holidays! How about you? Are you feeling the stress already?!

Full Circle With Friends

I have two three new friends and followers. One is Nancy. Nancy writes A Rural Journal. We met through Leontien. Leontien includes us in her circle of friends and the circle has come around and connected Nancy to me.  Nancy lives in an old farmhouse on 80 acres in eastern Nebraska. She enjoys taking pictures and writing about them on her blog. Nancy's sense of humor comes through her writing - I love it!

Source

Brenda is my newest follower, but a friend of old. Many years ago I was a new mom and needed day care for my infant son. I wanted CS to receive loving care in a home without a ton of other kids around. I found Brenda. Brenda had her own baby who was a few months younger than mine. Brenda wanted to stay home for a while and take care of one other infant. It was a match made in heaven! We went our separate ways and haven't seen each other in years, but she's recently reconnected with me through Facebook and then through our blogs. Brenda, like me, enjoys making cards and scrapbooking! Brenda's blog is 2 Peas in a Pod.

Thanks for stopping by my blog and becoming followers. It is great to have folks read about my adventures.

Not so fast!!! Dreaming has another follower!

Janice just clicked the "Follow" button. She writes a blog called, Janice's Footsteps. Janice and I participate in Everyday Rurality's Chats on the Farmhouse Porch blog hop. Janice began her blog to motivate her to write every day.

100

One hundred. 

It's a great number. 

The word comes from Old English 'hundred', which in turn came from Proto-Germanic 'hundaradan'. And, someplace I read that 'hundaradan' means 'counting of one hundred'. 


100 is a milestone. When my children learned to count, reaching 100 was cause for celebration. 100, uttered with finality and a huge, proud sigh!


My boys' teachers used to celebrate the 100th day of school by encouraging the students to bring in 100 things. We used to have such fun finding unusual items to count and carry to school. One year it was drops of water. Another time we took in 100 pine cones - I liked that one... it got them off my lawn! 


As a teacher 100 could be a grade, too. As a student I loved to have a paper come back with 100 on it... in red! 


According to Wikipedia, 100 is:

• the sum of the first nine prime numbers, as well as the sum of four pairs of prime numbers (47 + 53, 17 + 83, 3 + 97, 41 + 59), and the sum of the cubes of the first four integers (100 = 1³ + 2³ + 3³ + 4³). Also, 2⁶ + 6² = 100.
• the number of yards in a football field
• the exact number of prime numbers whose digits are in strictly ascending order. (e.g. 239, 2357 etc.)
• the number of tiles in a standard Scrabble set in most languages.
• the number of US Senators.
• the number of blessings a religious Jew is supposed to utter each day.
• the title of a war fought between the Kingdoms of France and England between 1337 and 1453.... a bit more than 100 years!
• the minimum distance in yards for a Par 3 gold course.
• how many acres the woods were for Winnie the Pooh.
• hekaton in Greek and tien ten in Old English.
• the number of bottles on the wall in the song we used to sing as kids.

My father hopes to celebrate his 100th birthday! I hope so, too!

I have my 100th follower! That's another milestone!

Welcome to Kim. She writes "Millie's Mats". Kim and I have rug hooking in common. We also have a parent with Alzheimer's in common. I'm so glad you are following along!

What does 100 mean to you?

New!

Hey, look what I got....

source

New blogger friends!

Welcome to my blog! I am so glad that you stopped by and clicked the 'Follow' button. I love meeting new people through blogging. Having new friends is just like having lots of packages filled with interesting things to discover. I really enjoy learning more about your worlds!  I love hearing from you!

You may want to visit my new friends, too. Here is a bit of information about them:

Honey writes Stories to Share. She lives in my former home state of South Carolina with her husband and two girls. Honey is a writer and aspires to get paid for doing what she loves!

Cathy writes Cathy Kennedy's Blog and has published a children's book. She promotes literacy for kids - I'm and advocate for that as well.

EmptyNester writes two blogs, Empty Nest and One Flew Over the Empty Nest where she talks about her hobby of bird watching. Empty Nest also lives in my former home state of South Carolina. Her four girls have all grown and left home. I can identify with that, having had my blogs fledge a few years ago.

4R Ranch writes a blog of that name. 4R visited my Blog Hop and shared many pictures of her sister and her horses. I hope she 'hops on board' some more!

AnnMarie writes Momto8blog. Although some of her children have fledged, she still has more at home than I ever had. I just can't imagine it! She also has, at last count, 1731 followers. Ann Marie aspires to be a writer and is building a network of friends through her blog.

Achieve1dream writes One Friesian Sporthorse, One Percheron and One Donkey. She also writes Living A Farmer's Life.  I met Achieve through the Hobby Horse Blog Hop, which I will put up later today. I also think it's neat that we both 'Dream'!

It is a sunny day out. The temperatures are warming back up to 'spring tease' temps. I can't wait to get out and 'do' something! Have a wonderful day!