Spring is near in Mississippi! Birds and Blooms.

(some how the original post got copied over :(. I will try to rewrite as much as I can.)

I love Springtime!

I love the first blooms.

I love the critters that are coming out to enjoy the nice weather. The birds are just as colorful as the new bloom. Some come help me greet the morning at my kitchen window when I'm preparing my cup of coffee. I can easily identify the bright red Cardinals, Bluebirds, and red-breasted Robins. I have tried getting a quick snapshot of my beautiful visitors, but by the time I run for my phone and put it in camera mode, they are long gone. One of these days I will be prepared and wait patiently with my camera and coffee.

I used to try to identify what kind of birds were around by their calls. Soon after moving here, I learned the joke is on me when I learned that the Mississippi state bird is the Mockingbird. According to State Symbols USA "Mockingbirds have extraordinary vocal abilities - they can sing up to 200 songs, including the songs of other birds, insect and amphibian sounds, even an occasional mechanical noise."  To look up any state symbols you might be curious about go to www.statesymbolsusa.org.

The birds are very vocal all day long. As the afternoon fades into the evening, the singsong lyrics fade and soon the owls start their conversations. Actually, if you take a moment to sit and listen, you would find Mississippi is very noisy at night... cicadas, crickets, frogs, owls, and oh so many night time sounds!

All this talk about birds and critters and I don't have a single picture. But I do have a picture of my neighbors blooming Magnolia. And I had to find out what variety of Magnolia. 

 I believe this particular variety is the Saucer Magnolia. It blooms in early spring, even before the leaves form. 

 I first started researching Magnolia's three weeks after moving here when the Possum Town Quilters invited me to participate in their Ultimate Guild Challenge 2016. The theme was "Magnolia", which happens to be the Mississippi State flower. Lucky for me they had just started forming buds and I got many snapshots of the different stages. I can't share with you all my pictures though, because they were taken with my previous phone, except for these two that I pulled from my FB account :).

 

There are many facts about Maggies that I found extra interesting.

• There are 200+ varieties
• Fossils were found with identified Magnolia plant dated over 20 million years old
• Magnolia evolved before bees showed up and therefore are pollinated by beetles instead of bees.

And this is the quilt wallhanging that was inspired by my research. I wanted to include every stage of the Magnolia cycle, from bud to flower to seed pod and even the dropping of the seeds are shown in the heart-shaped swirls. My quilt is hand appliqued and hand quilted with only the binding attached by machine. 

"Faith of a Seed....
                   Beauty of the South"
completed Fed 2015

I will leave you with a photo of a beautiful Mississippi sunset. Wishing you many beautiful sunsets too.