WQ #12: March 22: Spring/vivid
Nearly Blossoms
“Blossom by blossom the spring begins.”
— Algernon Charles Swinburne
Happy Wednesday and welcome to #WQ. Spring is off to a slow start here in Arizona.
Follow where your quotes lead you and have fun with a vivid spring – or fall if you are down under!
Last Week’s Featured Bridging Bloggers Below
- BUSHBOY’S WORLD – BRIDGE OVER MANN RIVER
- KEEP IT ALIVE – ADVICE TO BUILD A GOOD LIFE
- LADY LEE – BRIDGES, PLACES FOR REFLECTIONS IN SO MANY PLACES
- LOVING LIFE – “HAND”SOME AND SCARY BRIDGES
- NOWATHOME – BEAUTIFUL ASSORTMENT OF BRIDGES
- PICTURES IMPERFECT – BIKING AND BRIDGES
- ROCKSTAR GIRL – ROMANTIC BRIDGE CROSSINGS
- TOFINO PHOTOGRAPHY – HISTORIC TACOMA NARROWS BRIDGE VIDEO (MUST SEE)
- SECOND WIND LEISURE – FUN WITH BRIDGES
- THIS IS ANOTHER STORY – THE TEMPER THAT BLEW UP BRIDGES
- WRITERRAVENCLAW – FIND A BRIDGE, OR MAYBE A LUCKY PENNY
For More on a Vivid Spring…
Your post link goes here.
- KEEP IT ALIVE – GARDENS FLOURISH IN SPRING
- LADY LEE – WONDERFUL WEATHER, FABULOUS MEMORIES
- LOVING LIFE – TULIPS, TULIPS, TULIPS!
- PICTURES IMPERFECT – DANDELIONS THE PROMISE OF SPRING
- SECOND WIND LEISURE – WOULDN’T YOU RATHER BE…?
- SECOND WIND LEISURE – CUTE AND CUDDLY PEEKS OR SHARP PEAKS
- THE INKWELL – DANDELIONS TEACH US TO RISE UP AND FLOURISH IN SPITE OF OBSTACLES
- THIS IS ANOTHER STORY – WILL THERE BE BROCCOLI OR NO BROCCOLI?
Don’t forget to use Hashtag #WQ even now that links are working.
Mark Twain Imagines Arizona
“In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.”
— Mark Twain
Water drop patterns Cling to fragile spring petals Satisfy their thirst. Growing through daggers That protect delicate buds From prying fingers Barely visible Sweet purple blossoms blinking Rain drops from their eyes © Marsha Ingrao Spring Haiku Sentences
Each day brings new weather. Monday it is raining. It may snow before the end of the week. Last week, the temperatures reached 60 degrees – perfect walking weather. I would still rather be outside for a few minutes even in the rain.
Each year seems to bring a new climate. I took these photos on Monday walking around in the rain at our condo. The next picture I took almost to the day two years ago.
“People ask me what I do in the winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.”
-Rogers Hornsby
“A flower blossoms for its own joy.”
— Oscar Wilde
Birds Love Spring
“My favorite weather is bird-chirping weather.”
— Terri Guillemets
They are chirping this year, but they do not seem to like to sit out in the rain. They would rather be out on a sunny day.
Moji Loves Birds
Moji would rather be holding a bird than her beloved gingerbread girl. She is ready for spring. Until it feels more like spring, though, she’s staying cozy on the bed. Her favorite game is to stare out the screen door and chirp like a bird. She puffs out her cheeks, looks like she’s chewing at a super speed and out pop—chirps.
Dicken’s Delight
“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold, when it is summer in the light and winter in the shade.”
— Charles Dickens
Spring in Central California is glorious. The air sparkles, the Sierra Nevada glisten with their snowy caps, and the sun casts gentle shadows, patterning the ground. This photo was taken in 2008. I haven’t been there this spring, but I am told that floods spring up where you least expect them. I’d rather be there when the rain comes in controllable amounts.
“Some old-fashioned things like fresh air and sunshine are hard to beat.”
— Laura Ingalls Wilder
This is one of my favorite spring pictures, our neighbor when she was little surrounded by daisies watching the animals in the petting zoo play together.
Ekphrastic Syllabic Poetry
Colleen invites us to create ekphrastic poetry this week for Tanka Tuesday, so if you follow my example you can also link to her post.
“Ekphrastic poems exist to respond to a piece of art critically, analytically, and reverentially.”
English: The Artist’s Garden at Giverny, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Artist%27s_Garden_at_Giverny
Bearded beauties bathed In dappled sunlight and shade Inspired Monet In pinks and purples Sturdy green stems held heads high Dropping shy curtsies Earth pressed hard by feet Planning his color palette Approving the view Irises preserved With oil paint on canvas Dabbed into future © Marsha Ingrao Traditional Haiku Sentence
Miscellaneous Tidbits to Read with Coffee on Friday
I changed themes this week because my beloved theme, Lens, had expired and was no longer supported by WordPress. Little by little, things had fellen apart. For example, my posts wouldn’t save after I wrote something for an hour. My “Liked” stars were erased when I liked posts in my comments.
So, I got this new WordPress free theme. I like it except for the fact that it doesn’t support widgets. I’m supposed to be able to create widgets by using the block editor, but I haven’t figured that out yet. If you are brainy and can help me fix my blog, I could use your help.
Inspired by
- Lens Artist Photo Challenge – spring
- FOTD
- Tanka Tuesday – spring/green should be submitted by 3-19.
- Tanka Tuesday – Ekphrastic Poetry – inspired by art
- Sunday Stills – I’d Rather Be…
- Cell Pic Sunday – Angel Oak Tree
- Natalie’s Weekend Coffee Share & Photographing Public Art Challenge – doors and gates in Charleston
Upcoming and Ongoing on Always Write
- WQ Page
- WQ #13: March 29: CHANGE/WRITER’S CHOICE/DOUBLE DIP CHALLENGES
- #DICKENSCHALLENGE started February 7th. Join Yvette Prior, Trent McDonald, and me in reading ONE – not THREE Dickens’ novellas by June 9th. Donna from Retirement Reflections posted an excellent review on her challenge, What’s On Your Bookshelf this month.
Marsha Ingrao - Always Write 
73 responses to “#WQ #12: Spring: Bird Chirping Weather”
[…] WQ #12 […]
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Probably, I dumb question, but how do I link up (when I’m ready). Thanks!
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Include the address of your post in the comment section. And add the address of my post in the body of your post. If you highlight the name of my blog or the name of the challenge, there will be options. One of the options is to insert a link. Paste the address of my post into the box snd press apply. That’s it. Let me know if need more help.
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Thanks so much!
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Thank you!
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First time to your blog. What a fun format with your haiku, the quotes, the beautiful photos. I love it! So I changed blog themes recently. Does this theme have a sidebar? (Some don’t.) If so, then you can create widgets. I think I could help you. You can email me at mybijoulife@pm.me
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I like the spring rain & birds chirping. The dogwood trees are almost blooming in my area. I can hardly wait.
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Karen, dogwoods are my favorite. I don’t see too many here in AZ. I hope you have lots of pictures! 🙂
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Spring is a long way off for us Marsha but I’ll be in England in May and June so am looking forward to an extra spring season this year. All the quotes and photos are fabulous!!
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Thanks, Debbie. England is so beautiful in the spring. The colors are so crisp.
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[…] Marsha’s Wednesday Quotes: Spring […]
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One word, ADORABLE!
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We had a bit of snow last night. I’m eager for spring.
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You and me, too. When that happens, I feel like winter is coming on instead of spring. I am all turned around! 🙂
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Hi Marsha – our Scottish Fold cat does exactly the same thing when she’s watching birds. It always makes us smile. She looks like she’s chewing gum and then she makes these squeaky little sounds. I also enjoyed the Dickens’ quote about March – it’s one that fits Autumn down here as much as it fits Spring where you are.
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How fun! Have you ever captured your cat doing it on video? I tried, but so far I haven’t been successful! 🙂
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This is a fabulous post, Marsha. Both your poems of lovely, but the first one is outstanding. Such beautiful imagery.
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Thank you, Robbie. That’s high praise coming from a poet! 🙂 I love writing haikus.
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I like haikus too. You can say so much in so few words.
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They are a quick challenge to find the right words. 🙂
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Marsha, Thank you for your weekend coffee share and PPAC contribution. I love all of your flower photos and the cherub. Spring is such a beautiful season. This past week I was delighted to see crocus, snowdrops, and aconites in my corner of the world. Today we had rain so I expect more green and flowers next week. Which WordPress theme do you use now? WP has so many free themes, it takes time to select one.
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It takes so much time. I chose one that had a similar look to Lens. I chose Masu. I am not 100% sold yet. I still don’t have any widget type communications. I’m not sure there is a search bar.
It feels like they have downgraded the support for their Premium customers because so many of the themes are an additional cost or an upgrade to Business, which is quite a leap in price. Since blogging is a hobby, I shouldn’t be so picky, maybe, but I want it to look professional even if I’m not! LOL
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The many theme choices seem overwhelming. I like to have a sidebar and widgets so when I browse for a theme, I filter for free themes with sidebars. This narrows down the number of choices then I read their information and select one with widget options.
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That is a good way to go, Natalie. I like the photo displays, but the two I’ve had don’t show widgets on the first page. The last one I had at least had them on the posts. I’ll give it a couple of weeks, then if I don’t like it, I’ll find another. Thanks for the input! 🙂
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I apologize for the delay in my submission.
https://theinkwelljourney.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-vivid-promise-of-spring.html
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Great story to go with the vivid pics!
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Hi Marsha,
Spring is making a stranger than normal entry this year to Sonoma County. We are still getting half-weeks where rain reigns and winds blow followed by silent sunny and hot days.
Not that I have any control so I just enjoy whatever happens out in our backyard.
I too have struggled with WP themes. I try not to change these often because I see it as a risk to loosing stuff, saved items or functionality – either of which would bring chaos to my blogging life.
So, I try to color well within the lines of safe blogging and not try to work out on the bleeding edge of whatever their engineers dream up.
Thus I still avoid even their block editor and more often, hard code my own html effects.
Lovely stuff on your post this week.
It’s always a pleasure to see what you’re up to.
Blessings
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Thank you so much, Gary. I would never have changed if I hadn’t been having trouble with the auto save feature. The like button is no big deal. Even so after I tried the new theme and wasn’t crazy about it, I couldn’t go back and get the other one!
You guys are really getting the weather. It looks like the weather got too carried away as it blew east, though. What devastation in MS. It reminds me of the total destruction of Paradise, CA by fire. When whole towns are destroyed I wonder where people are going to get help? I can’t imagine how frightening that would have been.
Glad you are doing well. I’ll be by to read your blog later today.
Blessings right back atcha! 🙂
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My gripes about WP are not really about their themes even though most of them are designed for folks other than writers – I’ve still managed to make one work for me. It more than makes me nuts how they just drop new and often poorly tested features on us which often break things that were working fine just yesterday.
They have caused me to avoid almost everything “fancy” because even if I liked it, they would break it too often and cost me hours to fix things – when I just want to write with the few hours I have to do so.
My bottom line is that all that said, I remain one very blessed guy and writer. WP remains worth the small cost I pay to protect my readers from ads, so I’m happy enough.
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I agree in feeling blessed by WP. I’ve got a Blogger account that I hardly touch, and they do seem to have a good platform, but the communication with other bloggers is much more robust using WordPress.
I do pay a small price to avoid the ads. As a reader, they are distracting. The other feature you get when you pay – usually – is support. That’s what ended when my last theme expired. The main thing that broke for me was the auto save. I can’t live well without that.
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Love the photos and poems! And yes, spring is coming on slowly in Arizona this year, even down here in Tucson. Nights are still chilly, and temps are only supposed to be in the upper 60s. I hope this means we’ll have a mild summer, but somehow I doubt it.
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I hope you do have a mild summer. It seemed like we hardly had a summer last year because of all the monsoons. We had an enormous amount of rain then, too. We’ll keep finger’s crossed and hope for great weather this summer! BTW, we are getting together in Scottsdale with a bunch of Valley Gals and Terri Webster Schrandt on April 5th. Would you care to join us?
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Hi Marsha, here’s my post
http://lifeafter50forwomen.com/2023/03/25/the-vivid-colors-of-the-spring/
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Lovely photos, poems and quotes – the perfect combo! Have a great week, Sadje. Happy planting!
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Thanks a lot my friend
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Thank you for being such a great WQer. 🙂 I love all your posts and especially your poetry. You are very well spoken.
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Thanks my friend.
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You’re welcome! 🙂
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🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼
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It’s lovely to see your colourful spring photos. As we are in Autumn, I’m dreading the winter which is coming. Mojo is very cute. Looking forward to joining your Dickens challenge
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Hi Jennifer, So great to connect. Moji says thank you. She’s quite the diva. I look forward to reading your reviews on Dickens, especially. When you post about one of the novellas, be sure to link to #DickensChallenge, or the current Dicken’s blog post so we can link your post to our next blog posts. We want to drive readers your way, too! The more conversation we get going about his works, the more interesting it is. We had quite a conversation about names of characters. Dickens is a master! I even found a site that lists all his character’s names for all his works. 🙂 Talk to you soon. (I’m not usually this wordy, so I hope I don’t scare you away!) 🙂
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Such beautiful photos!
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Thank you Joanne. 🙂
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oops, here’s my link
https://troyerslovinglife.blogspot.com/2023/03/putting-fingers-to-keyboardwqtheme.html
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wow, Kirstin! Gorgeous colors and photos. Love, love, love!
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I loved those so much…your originals were great! I love the bird chirping weather one and the one about 134 kinds of weather made me laugh. Pretty photos too. The one with the vintage farm machine and cactus was cool.
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That picture of the farm machine is just a few minutes walk from where I lived in CA. Almost everyone in rural Elderwood has some kind of old far implement or machinery as yard art. We had 1966 Ford dump truck in ours.
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These blossoms are so beautiful. Thanks for sharing these amazing photos. Anita
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Hi Anita, how have you been? It seems like a while since we’ve chatted – my bad. Thanks for stopping by! 🙂
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Thanks Marsha. We will be happy together. Anita
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🙂 Sending you smiles and hugs from afar!
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Ah, I know those March days well when it is summer in the sunlight and winter in the shade (and I am always taking my sweater off, on and off again)!
Thanks so much for the shout out. It is greatly appreciated!
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Hi Donna, take your sweater off and be comfortable. We might get some snow here yet. We had a bit of hail. Thank you again so much for your wonderful review. 🙂
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[…] week’s Wednesday Quotes is focused on Spring, which, frustratingly, I’ll have to say is not […]
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I hope you have lots of little b’s!
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Great photos. Very springy!
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Thanks, John!
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Beautiful photos, Marsha. Spring is here at last 🙂
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Prescott is a little slow, but the difference in just a few weeks – even at the snail’s pace spring is moving in – is noticeable. We had 10 inches of snow in late Feb., early March. Now we have buds. Yay!
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Love the cherub, Marsha, and your poetry is great. Still trying to figure out 136 types of weather?
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Vince read a thing yesterday about the 13 seasons. I’ll have to find it and post it. It was so cute. I don’t know about the 136 types either, Jo, but Mark Twain had quite a sense of humor!
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🌞❄️🌂🌤🌦🌈
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A post to celebrate spring, Marsha! Beautiful poetry, I enjoyed the one about the bearded irises. Great images, too, and how do you find your quotes?? I google quotes etc, but I don’t get very good ones like you do.
Your theme really makes the words BIG, I could read on my PC without my classes! Using the block editor or widgets isn’t too difficult. I had taken a screenshot before I changed mine because I was having big issues with classic editor and widgets. But as soon as I opened block editor, suddenly my old widgets were there if I scrolled way down. Weird–I just added them back in like you would add blocks in a post. Good luck with that. I can always show you if you didn’t get to it when I see you!
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I hope they are still there. Maybe you can talk me through it later this week if you have time. I gotta run right now.
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Thanks for being a cornerstone of WQ, Terri. Our posts matched perfectly! I’d rather be blogging! 🙂
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[…] Wednesday Quotes […]
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Hi Marsha, Your photographic work is brilliant – I just love it! ‘Art’ – in all its many manifestations, is so much more satisfying, than expensive jewellery and OTT fashion… The older I get, the more I appreciate all the simpler things in life. Common sense I suppose as life grows shorter…Wising you the best. Joy x
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I agree about the value of art, Joy. It is one of the beautiful things that can surround us as we age. We are trying to uncomplicate our lives right now, and it makes so much sense. Thank you for your wonderful compliment. It means so much!
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Beautiful photos Marsha 😀
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Thanks, Cee! Have a great hump day! 🙂
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lovely spring post, Marsha 🙂
https://ladyleemanilablog.wordpress.com/2023/03/19/the-sun-has-come-out-and-the-air-is-vivid-with-spring-light/
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Lovely thoughts and photos, Lady Lee. 🙂
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