April 2017 comes to an end.

Most of the shots in this post are ones I took today, the last day of April but I'll begin with a few from the past couple of weeks.



I love yellow fields that I inevitably see when driving outside the city in April. 



It's also nice to see the birds foraging on the ground like the cardinal above.



The roses above are one of the few varieties I still have in my overgrown neglected yard.



The bath water was hanging onto the American Robin.



The rest of the shots are from a walk around the JC Raulston Arboretum at NCSU today.



They've made a lot of changes since I walked there last. 



The lath house is always one of my favorite places to explore.



They did a major change to the lath houses some years ago but that's one of the few part of the garden that doesn't seem different from when I was there last.



I always like to see children enjoying gardens.



There was one little boy that was fascinated with a dead animal and wanted to make sure we saw it.



I guess it's as good of a way as any for children to get an understanding of the cycle of life.



The paths meander in different ways from last year which confused me but major changes to paths and garden sections usually don't happen too often.



I like the way the arboretum has a lot of different conditions within the garden.



There's full sun, full shade, partial shade and so on.



That's one of my favorite parts of another garden not too far from me (the North Carolina Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill).



Duke gardens in Durham, NC is another nice one.



I was glad Bill suggested the arboretum in Raleigh, NC today because I drive to Durham and back every day for work so it was nice to go to the one in the town I live in.



There weren't as many people there as sometimes walk around the garden on weekends.



The think the overcast weather may have cut down on the people which suited me.



I prefer not having to dodge people when I'm taking pictures.



There was a much larger part of the garden devoted to rose than there used to be.



Believe it or not I actually whittled down the number of shots I initially picked for this post.



That said this is a rather long photographic meander.



Part of what makes it hard to be selective is there are so many different areas with different plants and trees.



I am running out of commentary so I hope I'm coming close to an end.



I upload to flicker before I start a post so while I'm pasting in the location of the shot I don't know how near I'm coming to the last shot I picked.



I'm pretty sure I'm on the last stretch.



Happy May Day tomorrow!

Sunday April 2 through Saturday April 8, 2017

Last Sunday Bill and I walked on a trail near Blue Jay Point that included a small part of the NC mountain to sea trail.



I was impressed by a man that was walking very fast who we let pass us.



He said, yesterday I got 8 miles in and I'm going for at least 7 today.



I'm not good at guessing ages but my guess would be late 60s.



We were feeling pretty good about going on a hike on Sunday after a 3 mile or so lake walk on Saturday.



It wasn't so much about distance to me as how steep some of the hills are on the Sunday trail.



A short hilly walk always gets me more than a long flat one so I was impressed by the speedy man walking so briskly up the hills.



I loved seeing the new fern fronds, wildflowers and my first butterfly siting last Sunday.



My neighborhood is looking very beautiful this spring.



The tall azaleas at the bottom of my driveway look like trees particularly since the bottom blossoms were killed off in the cold March weather.



I like the way they reach up and touch my oak trees.



We had a windy day this past week where I had trouble driving.



It was only a brief amount of time but I could feel the wind when I was steering which was odd.



The bushes in the shot above and the one before it are what is usually my azalea wall but this year the bottom two thirds lost its buds before they bloomed. 



The American Robins are getting busy.



I like the early leaves as much as anything about spring.



The bush below did better this year than any of my azaleas.



It's usually the last to bloom but ordinarily that would be late April to early May.

End of March beginning of April

We're having a beautiful spring in spite of losses early due to dramatic temperature swings.



I knew the dogwoods would be fine because they weren't part of the extra early budding that happened during a warmish February.



Even with a lot of lost azalea blossoms they are starting to show me that they weren't all hit by the swings.



This weekend couldn't be more perfect temperature and sun wise.



Bill and I walked at lake lynn today. 



It's only a few miles from my house.



The only reason I don't walk there more is with Shelly Lake in my neighborhood I go there more.



It's nice having so many good places to walk near by.



The turtles were the big news today.



I know there are always a lot of turtles at this lake in the spring but I wasn't thinking about it while walking.



I might have missed them altogether if Bill hadn't pointed them out.



The pair above looked like a parent putting its arm around a child.



The shot above is another log with turtles (there were several).



The funniest part was watching a turtle climb on its sibling (or that's my read on the relationships) and slide off into the water.



I love the soft light colored new leaves of spring.



The azalea below lost most of the lower two thirds of the bushes buds to low temperatures but the top part of the bush has burst into full bloom



Dogwoods are the state flower in NC.



They've always been a favorite flowering tree for me.