Springtime in East Tennessee!

We love springtime, and who doesn’t!  It’s a time of renewal, change and the return of greenery and a refurbishment of nature’s color palate.  It is a promise of the warmth and long days of sunshine to come. 

Laurie captured this male bluebird in a tree in our backyard.  He’s dressed in his full spring mating finery…a beautiful sign of spring for sure!  He did everything but smile for this photo…

This is a photo from the back deck or our house in mid-March.  The low lying greenery is beginning to fill in a little and the redbuds have popped out…enhanced by blue skies!

Along with spring’s arrival, we had visitors to help us enjoy the change in seasons.  I took this photo of Laurie with our daughter-in-laws parent, Bonnie and Dan.  They had just recently retired and were returning north to Indiana from their exploration of Florida…

Turn around is fair play… Laurie took this photo of Dan and Bonnie with yours truly.  I grew the beard starting last October and so far I like it.  The big test will be the beard vs. the hot summer weather to come.   

We drove Bonnie and Dan around a little bit before going out for dinner.  Laurie took this view of a tiny portion of Tellico Lake and the distant Smoky Mountains from the Wellness Center in Tellico Village.

This was another early spring view of Tellico Lake and the mountains.  The first view was in Loudon County and this one is a bit closer to the mountains in Monroe County Tennessee. (Note: Tellico Lake has 351 miles of shoreline)

There are flowering trees everywhere… The predominate color is white with a nice scattering of redbud trees and the occasional forsythia bush mixed in…

Knoxville and Farragut Tennessee’s big Dogwood Arts Festival begins April 1^st…but the timing of the dogwood blossoms is always a bit unpredictable.  They may be a little early this year but the dogwood festival trails (driving tours) are always popular!

Our Scarlett Quince at the front of the house never completely stopped blooming throughout this relatively mild winter and now it is in full bloom…just beautiful!

Another true sign of spring!  JD is on the porch grabbing that warm spring sunshine… He lives for sunshine and during warm weather he spends a lot of time on the screened porch soaking it up!

We had a full moon the other night… Very bright indeed!  Laurie captured this photo of the moon shining through the buds and blossoms of one of our trees.

This is another view from the back or our house.  It was taken from our guest bedroom’s deck a week or 10 days after the photo Laurie took from our first floor deck.  Tellico Lake is in the background, the redbuds are maxed out and the green is filling in… It won’t be long before our lake view is hidden until fall.

During the winter of 2014 – 2015, our loropetalum bushes really took a hit!  One of them died and 2 of the others looked like we should give them their last rites… Fortunately, all of them have come back and they are showing off their vibrancy again this spring!

This piece of Mother Nature's lucky landscaping is on one side of our house.  This beautiful patch of moss has totally taken over the side yard with a little help and encouragement from us.  Pluses are that it’s green year around and that it never needs mowing!  We are also encouraging the moss to take over the back yard as well…minimizing summertime mowing there to about once every a month at present.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by and checking out springtime in East Tennessee!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave