Sunrises

 

Most mornings I am up before the sunrise. Considering we are in the city surrounded by houses very close to us, the sunrises are lovely. Our sunroom affords us the view, as does being on top of a hill.  
     I have my morning devotions as I sit facing the east. The colors and clouds change in slow motion as I watch. The light pink gradually becoming darker with new oranges and yellows, purples and blues. When the sun comes above the horizon, I must put down the window shades so I can still read and ponder. 
   If I am lucky, the birds begin to show up at my feeders. Here we don't have the number of cardinals we had in Missouri. We do have an occasional few. Mainly sparrows, purple finches, house wrens, juncos, and a downy woodpecker that likes the hanging suet cakes on our birch tree. In the summer sometimes yellow finches arrive. 
   We had a blank postage-stamp backyard when we bought the house. It's still small, however we planted a 15 foot Heritage River Birch in the fall of 2018. It is an amazing tree, more than doubling in height. Plus I have planted different shrubs at the perimeter, by our fences. First came the flower beds though. I just do a few new plants a spring.
And spring is what I am waiting for now, to get back to the gardening, my new favorite thing.