Yesterday Seattle had just incredibly gorgeous weather: delightfully warm, sunny, and calm. Did I mention warm and sunny? It has been so very cold and gray this year, so I treasure these rare bursts of heaven. The irises are gearing up.

My garden and part of my neighbor’s. Bluebells and forget-me-nots, plus irises to come.

Connecting to Through My Lens Monday, Blue Monday, Tuesday’s Wordless Wednesday, Wordless Wednesday, Little Things Thursday, Skywatch Friday, Pink Saturday, Shadow Shot Sunday 2, and Your Moment Sunday. Thanks so much for visiting here, and hope to see you again soon. Please sign up at upper right for notifications of new posts.

We had our first snow this winter two days ago. I love that brief time when the snow has fallen but no wind has come along to disturb the frosting on trees and shrubs. I went outside to our patio, standing under the eaves so my camera wouldn’t get the silll-falling snow on it, when I heard that familiar Anna hummingbird whirrr. There she was, and what a scenic, snowy backdrop she had as she rested on her red feeder! I like this for the snow frosting everything like icing as much as the beautiful little bird, so I am calling this my Best Post of the Week.

Since several of you asked, they do stay in this lattitude nowadays because people like us provide feeders. It is not usually freezing here, and if it does freeze, we take the feeder in overnight so it’s liquid in the day.

Snow counts as water for Watery Wednesday, doesn’t it? Also, visit Outdoor Wednesday, Wordless Wednesday, Scenic Sunday, SOOC Sunday (straight out of the camera), Camera Critters and Ruby Tuesday 2. Click on Sara’s Fave Photos for the complete blog collection here. Or try a tag like “Scenic” in the right sidebar down a bit, or a search for “Snow” in the upper right field, perhaps, to see something new.

Thought I’d give you a vision of July flowers on this gray January day. Going through the archives to upload more photos into Free Photos “next door” (do check it out, or subscribe in that section, to see what’s new), I came across this shot of part of my front garden in my last house. I love flowers; can you tell? One of the things that happened in the four years or so we lived there is that our neighbors began to plant more flowers, and they said that we had inspired them. That felt good, and looked good, too!

Visit Today’s Flowers for more beautiful flowers from around the planet.