Life at a "Swell's" pace

These trees are one of a kind in front of my home here in Oregon. They are quite the eye-catchers and we have had so many people stop by, or see them on the internet, and ask what kind of tree they are.

Their bold, pink ray of color that seems to almost blind you when you stare at them too long.

And, even though these Hawthorns are magnificent, the pollen is incredible!

But, even with all the pollen, the trees are amazing with the color the cast. Everything around them almost seems to glow with a pink shade for about 3 months.

And, you can see another down-side to these beautiful trees. The THORNS! Yeah, they are a pain when you run into them. We try to keep most of the branches cut from about 6-feet down on the tree that way there isn't any eye-pokers lurking around to stab someone.

I always cut a few limbs off here and there and place them in a large vase in my house just to see the bright colors when I wake up. My bathroom has a black and brown theme to it so these bright, pink Hawthorn limbs bring out a different mood in my bathroom, especially in the morning when I don't want to get up and around. And the leaves and the berries that come after the blooms have fallen off are very edible too.

The tiny blooms do look amazing in a small dish of water.

After digging frantically through my photos to try to gather up all the ones from my trips back and forth to Arkansas, I came across some flower pictures I took late one night. I love fresh flowers, but honestly I love live flowers, in a cute little pot, the best. When someone gives me fresh cut flowers, how can you say no though, really?

How can you say not to fresh cut flowers when they look this lovely? I received these from my precious little boy, Skylar (his daddy helped) when I landed back in Portland after an Arkansas visit with my beloved, John. I love the color pink and pretty much any bright color, so ~~they~~ Skylar did a great job picking out the perfect bouquet of roses to give me. Plus, they were a nice surprise after being shoved on an aircraft for 8 1/2 LONG hours!

We took a little day trip to the Daffodil Farm here in Oregon to pick daffodils around the end of March and in that bunch of flowers we had our self some twins.