Monday of the second week of Lent - between rains

The spot where this photo was taken is close to where the ice bells were last week. They were over near that bridge near the top of the photo - the bridge that is mostly underwater. After ~3 inches of rain this weekend, there isn't much ice to be found - but plenty of water! I didn't get any pictures on Sunday - too rainy and gloomy. Fortunately, I stopped at Warrenville Grove on my way to work today - not much in the way of photo ops by the time I was headed home. The rain is already starting again tonight.

Even a Lenten project like this is subject to "fasting," in the sense that I can't make this project take priority over other important things - church, doing things with family, working, all of that. It is good to learn how to make space for a project like this where I would have thought there was no time and opportunity. Even when I haven't been able to take pictures, I think I'm noticing the changes around me a little more - the birds, the weather, the plants (soon).

Speaking of plants, I learned yesterday that the witch hazel I photographed in the wet on Saturday actually has one branch that blooms in the fall and the rest blooms in the spring! I also learned that we have another spring-blooming witch hazel that has orange flowers instead of yellow. (The latter is immortalized in the "ice leaf" on my home page, www.klickfamily.com/vickie.) It's good to learn something new about the world around us - or even about our own gardens.