Thought I’d do something a little different for today’s post and share some photos. I take inspiration from two awesome bloggers that I follow, Clare at A Suffolk Lane and Linda at Walkin’ Writin’ Wit & Whimsy.
The photos they share always draw me in and I love seeing the world from different locations. As a nature lover, I get such great joy from seeing their photographs.
With this pandemic still steaming ahead, and lockdowns still in place, we don’t get out as often we’d like. So when we can, we try and take advantage of spending some time within nature.
My partner and I take full use of the daily outdoor exercise permitted (always adhering to social distancing!) and we are lucky that close to our home is a nice walking path and there are lots of trees, bushes and fields so we get to see nature in all her glory.
We are also blessed with a small front garden and a good size back garden. And while we’ve not really done anything with them yet since we’ve only been in our house a year, we have had the chance to see what flowers live in these small scratches of land.
When I was growing up, daisies were everywhere. Lawns and grass verges were carpeted with them. That faded due to constant mowing, weed killers and returfing. But now I’m seeing a resurgence of daisies. We have several crops of them in our garden and my partner mows around them for the bees.
Dotted throughout the edges of the lawn, I found these really small purple flowers. Again, my partner (without any asking) mowed around them and didn’t strim too close. He knows me so well and understands how seeing the wildflowers makes me happy.
This dazzler was hidden behind our Wolfsbane (which hasn’t flowered yet, so I couldn’t snap a picture).
While wandering around the garden and crouching down to snap photos of daisies, I looked up under the hedge we have and found another of those dark pink flowers growing very well in the depth of the hedge. 🙂
I am ALMOST sure these clusters of tiny blue flowers are Forget-Me-Knots.
I was delighted to find we have Bluebells growing in our front garden right under the window. I had originally thought there were only daffodils here but when they started to die away, these pretty bells appeared. 🙂
I may also be one of the few people who don’t hate dandelions. I appreciate the role these sunny wildflowers have for our bees and other pollen drinkers as they come up early in the year.
I even like the look of the clock dandelion… not so much after its seeds get into my flower pots, but still, they are pretty in a-way.
This pretty Peacock (I think) butterfly stayed settled on the dandelion giving my partner a great shot of the full wing expanse while we were out for our walk.
I haven’t identified this lovely white butterfly yet. There are a lot of white butterfly species in the UK. It was fluttering around a lot and we were lucky to snap this picture as moments later it was off again 🙂
I hope you enjoyed seeing these nature shots from Northern Ireland and to all my more knowledgeable gardening friends, if you recognise the names of any of the flowers above that I hadn’t identified, please let me know!
Happy writing
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Stunning pictures, Ari. 💜💜
Thank you my friend 🙂
Great pictures. Nature can be calming and inspiring, just what a writer needs. And you don’t always need to walk far away from home 🙂
Thanks Tomas, glad you liked the photos. We have been very lucky, our garden is bristling with nature and wildflowers and the small area we work on our permitted daily exercise is also teeming with nature, especially since there has been a reduction of cars and people.
Lovely, cheerful photos. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you so much, Deb, glad you enjoyed them. I think I need to prowl the garden again, I’m already seeing some more new plants appearing.
Thank you so much for mentioning my blog, Ari – how sweet of you! Your pictures are beautiful!
The small blue/purple flower in your lawn is a speedwell; probably a slender speedwell.
The dark pink flower is honesty and has gorgeous seed pods so don’t chop it back.
Yes, they are forget-me-nots!
Yes, it is a peacock butterfly!
Your white butterfly is a female orange-tip butterfly. Most white butterflies look alike – mainly white with a few black smudges and spots – but orange tips have a beautiful green and white mottled pattern on the underside of their wings which the other whites don’t have. The male orange-tip is white with – guess what! – orange tips to his wings. Orange-tips fly during the spring and other whites usually fly a little later in the year; they are rapid flyers and most people have real difficulty catching up with them for a photo. You are very lucky to have caught this one!
I love daisies and dandelions as well and keep as many as I can for the bees and other insects.
Take care, Ari and keep safe and well
Clare xx
It was my pleasure, Clare. I always love your beautiful photos, like I get to walk through someone else’s world for a short time. 🙂
Thank you SO much for identifying our flowers and butterflies. After your message, we saw the male orange tip 😀
I remember seeing Honesty in my neighbour’s garden when I was little. I never noticed the flowers, but I remember those wonderful seedpods poking through the fence! I never realised the flowers were so pretty too.
I hope you have a lovely weekend Clare. Blessings and stay safe.
Ari x
Thank you Ari! I have had a good day today spending all afternoon in the garden. My husband cooked the evening meal, too!
Take care, my dear ❤ ❤
Very pretty! Thanks for a blast of sunshine.
Thanks H, glad you liked them 🙂
Beautiful post, Ari! It made my day much brighter.
Thanks Eugenia, I am glad you liked my photos. I think with all this heavy news bombarding us on a daily basis, flashes of nature can lift us all up 🙂
Yes, I agree. Nature definitely is uplifting. 😉
Dear Ari – Well here I am, late at night, LONG day at work and you’re fast asleep and I came upon this post and it made my day! Thank you for the shout out to my blog which began in 2013 to be just about walking, but has morphed into a blog about walking AND nature.
You have a lot of flowers to admire and include in your post. I once had a nice butterfly garden in my small backyard and we had the Polar Vortex in late Winter 2014 and it wiped out most of my perennials, my butterfly bushes and I was devastated. I decided to wait a year before planting anything else as I was upset having lost everything, and we had another Polar Vortex the following year – the rest of my longstanding Coneflowers, Black-eyed Susans – all gone. I had spent many hours out there keeping it nice, but I had begun walking and said “no more” – maybe when I’m retired. After seeing all your wildflowers and spots of color it makes me want to change my mind. I have violets and dandelions in the yard – I may include them in a Wordless Wednesday post.
I’ve resisted taking the camera to the Park daily due to COVID-19 and having a mask on my face (though there are few people on the pathway as we’ve had such chilly and damp weather lately). I’m going to follow my edict a little longer as our state is still a hot spot. Enjoy your flowers and getting out in nature Ari and thank you again for enjoying and sharing my blog.
Thanks for sharing, Ari, being able to get out with our dogs is the best daily tonic and we are lucky to live in the countryside. I also love dandelions!
Nature and walking are what keep me grounded too Joanna. I began a walking regimen back on Labor Day 2011. It was the best thing I ever did for myself and when I started the blog two years later, it was the second best thing. I used to go to larger parks with the camera every weekend, but since the pandemic began, and for now through May 15th, our Governor has discouraged “joy riding to non-essential places” and suggested trying not to fill up your gas tank due to excessive germs. I also used rubber gloves anyway to avoid gas smell on my hands, but I’m abiding by the suggestion. Also, leaving the camera at home for now since our state is a hot spot. There is so much nature to enjoy and it makes me sad that people only want to explore or walk on Earth Day or because they are off work and are bored with staying home.,
I am pleased you liked the pictures, Jo. You are so right, it really is a tonic…. a for the soul!
Yay I’m glad I’m not the only one who likes dandelions 🙂
I was happy to do the shout out, your blog has always been so inspiring and always has me reaching for my camera when I go out.
Oh that much has been heartbreaking to lose all those flowers. ooh I love violets, they are so pretty.
Thank you again Ari. I appreciate it and I am glad you are carving more time into your schedule to enjoy nature, even if you can’t get to parks, but can just enjoy it in your own yard and use your camera to do so. I miss the usual jaunts with the camera, especially to bigger parks on the weekend, but right now, from the parks that I follow on Facebook, they are open if you practice social distancing, but all their interpretive activities are cancelled. These parks are mostly along shorelines and most of them are already flooded and this is before the two days of rain we are having. The weather, like everything else these days, is just off kilter.
I hated losing those flowers – maybe when I am retired, I’ll start that flower garden again, but it will not look like it did back then. I had a lot of perennials, some I bought, but others I had traded with neighbors as we thinned out our gardens, so had perennials around the perimeter of the yard. It would be a lot of work and cost a small fortune to create it from scratch. I spent many hours tending it and that was before walking and blogging.
I have to say, Linda, this lockdown has totally rekindled my desire to get out into nature more and when it eventually ends, I will be scheduling in much more time outside in the wilderness…. well, parks at least! lol
I think I can sometimes get caught up on deadlines and to-do lists and I was losing my time and not realising just HOW few times I’d been going out over the last 6months (before the lockdown).
I know and now you regret it … you never know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone (paraphrasing Joni Mitchell there).
I have been to two larger parks – one last weekend and one this weekend and no one was wearing a mask today. I find that odd, but I’m going to stay in my mask – except it was so cold this morning it fogged up my glasses. I wore contact lenses for 35 years and stopped when I began working from home. I remember now the frustrations of lenses fogging up. I did a virtual 5K walk this morning. This is for a food pantry and I usually walk it every year – your donation goes right to Fish and Loaves and they charge a service fee for the tee-shirt. So this year I signed up to walk anywhere for the 5K amount and post my time. I meandered around and took pictures but posted anyway, but you had to verify it with your smartphone – I don’t have a smartphone, so not a big deal, but it will provide fodder for a post. It was at the freezing mark when I left for the walk!
I love the idea of a virtual 5k walk! What a lovely way to support a good cause
I thought I’d give it a whirl Ari since I’ve done it the past two years and it is a very good cause. There is much unemployment in our area right now. It was something different and after July 1st I’ll get the tee-shirt and finishing medal which will make it seem more real. I was going to wait to post, but decided to just go ahead and do it now.
Beautiful pictures, Ari. Seeing them brightened my day.
Thanks Kate, I’m glad you liked them 🙂 Do you have a garden you get to enjoy in the nice weather?
Yes, I have a small garden 😊. I also live in an estate with a wetland area, so I’ve got plenty of nature around me to enjoy when the weather is good.
Oh how lovely, to be so close to wetland areas. 🙂