Seems like I post annually about how much I love crape myrtles. Because they are truly something I rejoice in; have done ever since I was a child.
So today my gratitude is for this beauty that looks like it’s swaddled by a shrub. Just popping out of the sea of green like a breaching orca in an excess of joy.
©2026 Bas Bleu
With all the crappiness surrounding us these days—mostly man-made—I was filled with joy and gratitude to peek through the trees around the (man-made) ponds on the former corporate HQ campus and current construction site of absolutely hideous townhouses selling for $1.2M and discover my old friends the sacred lotus blooming.
Those ponds were completely
drained a couple of years ago, and I was so worried about the flora and fauna
that were part of their ecosystem. The snapping turtles were rescued and
relocated somewhere; I haven’t seen the blue herons. But the lotus gives me
hope.
A definite reason for
gratitude.
©2026 Bas Bleu
Between SCOTUS and the Virginia Supreme Court, both the law and enfranchisement had a bad week last week.
I mean—ugh.
So I’m turning to Nature today for my gratitude, and boy,
does she deliver.
Just—have some irises:
©2026 Bas Bleu
Today I am grateful for the poetry of Spring—all the colors that envelop us as Nature throws off Winter’s coat.
I’m grateful for brisk temperatures for my morning walk, as
well as the lack of humidity.
I’m grateful for overnight rain that clears up before I go
out.
I’m grateful for the birds who sing and the foxes running
across the golf course.
Is there any better way to start the day?
©2026 Bas Bleu
I try to be aware of my environment when I walk. I listen to the sounds around me and look side to side. Sometimes I remember to look up, too.
Yesterday morning, that’s when I saw this cloud activity,
driven by wind high up that we earthbounders did not experience:
I’m grateful for that ephemeral beauty and that I caught it
in transit.
©2026 Bas Bleu
On one of my walks last week, I noticed a lot of branches and limbs down. We hadn’t had high winds, but maybe the snow and snowcrete have affected the trees.
Anyway, this particular one interested me.
With the price of mushrooms being what it is, I considered
harvesting them, but I contented myself with just photographing them.
©2026 Bas Bleu
After three weeks of a four-inch crust of snowcrete on my back yard, the thing that gave me the most joy was seeing my winter aconite peeping up from the last blanket of white.
These sturdy little stalwarts never fail to raise my
spirits. They only make an appearance for a few weeks, then subside back into
the clay. But, oh, what a gift they are.
Forget the groundhog, Spring is on its way.
©2026 Bas Bleu
We had a big snow storm yesterday. Prolly about 5” in The People’s Republic, as measured by the top of the table carved out by the heated bird bath.
Sleet started dropping around 0900; by 1300 it was coming
down like steady rain.
Forecast is for days of never-above (or even approaching) the
freeze point, so I reckon I’m not getting out of here in my car for a while.
The weather also restricts my cardio workout, because no
one’s responsible for clearing the sidewalks on public streets around here, so
morning walks would be more danger than benefit. I have to wait until it
unfreezes long enough to melt and dry away all the snow.
Still—I have provisions, heat and power; at time of writing
I have detected no frozen pipes, so I’m doing really quite well.
I also have a bin of safflower seed, handfuls of which I
toss out on the patio about every hour. And the birds who’ve congregated to
tank up at the Bas Bleu Snack Bar—the juncos, blue jays, sparrows, finches,
chickadees, downies, cardinals, wrens, nuthatches, titmice and even the doves—are my
gratitude today. Because I spent hours, snuggled under an afghan crocheted by
my sister’s late mother-in-law and sipping my way through a pot of tea, just
watching them dancing in the unexpected largesse of food. (And also the
unfrozen source of water.) The sparrows, especially, made me smile, because
they were all fluffed-up little balls against the cold.
After the horror that was Saturday in Minneapolis, those birds
saved my soul.
©2026 Bas Bleu
All I’ve got to say today is glory be to God for Japanese maples.
This guy is in my back yard and every single year, when
things start turning to crap, he struts his stuff and fills me with joy.
Take some of that for yourself, too. He’s got plenty.
©2025 Bas Bleu
I was looking at autumn foliage a while ago and noticed this guy.
That’s it. That’s the post.
©2025 Bas Bleu
After a really slow start, I was gratified a few weeks ago to see that Nature was getting her Autumn on.
But it turns out, she was only just starting.
I’m so grateful for the brilliant golds
and scarlets of the past two weeks. I cannot look at any of it without joy
filling my being.
©2025 Bas Bleu
We have a central green—a village “common”, as it were—in our cluster. There’s a tot lot, with slides and a jungle gym, swings, a swathe of lawn and, of course poison ivy. (We’re three months out from the first acknowledgment of the pest and still waiting for the cluster board/management company/contracted landscaping company to actually, you know, do something about it.)
There’s also a metal picnic table/benches jobber, where I’ve
seen parents sit while watching their kids play.
Early last week, however, I noticed someone had ornamented
the table with pinecones. They so closely matched the color of the surface that
their protrusion looked almost organic.
When it was still there the next day, I augmented the
arrangement, just because it made me feel happy.
(Took me a while to get the pine sap off my fingers and mobile phone case.)
I don’t know what it was about those slender cones poking
up from the holes in the table, but it evoked something magical, whimsical and
even promising. Considering everything that’s going on in the world, I’m
perhaps overly grateful for things like this. But gratitude is gratitude.
©2025 Bas Bleu
