Today's Flowers: Full blooms and forming blooms

This has been a beautiful spring in my part of North Carolina.

All of the photographs in this post were taking in my garden this week.

My garden has lots of roses and each day new ones are blooming for me.

The rose above is from a tea rose bush I planted 20 years ago and is the first that I planted in my garden. At this point the part of my garden where it grows is in shade although that wasn't the case when I planted it. I haven't moved it to join the others that get more sun, because it seems to do well where it is.

My lavender is beginning to bloom earlier than usual and I noticed the scent first before walking over to the plant to see it was starting to bloom.

I like the scent of lavender when it's growing although there are a lot of manufactured lavender products that have a scent which I don't find as pleasant as what grows in my garden.

The butterfly weed below is forming buds which I know will soon give flowers for butterflies and bees to enjoy.

The hydrangea below is also in that early stage of flower formation which holds the promise of flowers to come.

I love my gerbera daisies which come back from the roots each summer.

The gerbera daisies usually don't come back until much later in the season but this year they began to return early.

I like the ones the curl a bit and form different shapes almost more than the symmetrical ones.

Some of the Queen Anne's Lace is already starting to form it's lovely bloom.

My privet which is as tall as a tree is in bloom and forms part of the privacy screening on one edge of my secret garden.

For more flowers around the world, visit the home of Today's Flowers.

Photohunters: Mother-Mom

The photohunters theme this week is Mother-Mom. My mother (born 1924 - died 1990) is on the left and my daughter (born 1985) is on the right. My daughter is the reason I'm a mom so I thought a shot of her with my Mom worked well for the theme. This shot was taken in 1989 at the beach a few months before my Mom had a stroke and was the last beach trip we had with her.

To visit other photohunters, the home of the hunt has links beginning Saturday morning.

Nature Notes: Here, there, and yonder

I wouldn't expect a grocery store parking lot to be a good place to experience nature.

This mockingbird was not only hanging out in the parking lot but was totally unafraid of humans such as myself.

I took a bunch of photographs and by and large was ignored even when I got relatively close.

Back at my house, as usual, I photographed the birds in my deck birdbath.

I'm pretty sure the robin above was aware of me out of the corner of his or her eye but the water felt too good to leave.

The female cardinal above was testing the waters going in and out and after her the male cardinal did the same.

I love the way water droplets look on the broad hosta leaves. There is something about a still drop of water that is magic to me.

The texture of the variegated hosta leaves doesn't hold the drops as well as the solid ones.

We haven't had as much rain lately and since it's getting quite warm I'm glad when it does rain a little for I know the plants are happy to get a drink.

The redbud trees are going to seed and their heart shaped leaves are forming with new ones appearing daily.

The oak trees in front of my house are such a nice canopy of shade and keep my house cooler.

The dogwoods are a lower canopy and one in particular is great for parking under the cooling branches.

I also like the way the top dogwood branches and lower oak tree branches co-mingle.

The mass of different plants I grow against my deck wall are filled with chirping birds hidden out of site.

On a weekend drive (but I wasn't the driver) it was interesting to see the change over to spring along the back roads.

I like to be able to be a passenger sometimes because I find I notice more and of course photography is safer if I'm not the driver.

I love to see the little yellow flowers springing up along the side of the road.

I find it very appealing to see houses set back with big trees and lots of growth.

Thursday is the official post date, although I tend to post early. Nature Notes day and Rambling Woods is the home of this theme.

Today's Flowers and Melanoma Awareness

Tomorrow is Melanoma Monday so I thought I'd combine my Today's Flower's post with my melanoma awareness post. All of the flowers in this post are what is currently blooming in my garden.

Melanoma Monday is also known as National Skin Self Examination day in the U.S. Starting in 1985 the American Academy of Dermatology has sponsored free skin cancer screenings in many cities on that day.

There is a lot of information online about Melanoma Monday and you can go to the AAD Site by clicking here for information. The entire month of May is Melanoma and Skin Cancer Awareness Month.

The right hand side bar on my site has a label called melanoma and more with posts about my diagnosis and surgery for melanoma which spread to a lymph node. I wrote a post in 2008 about Melanoma Monday and also a 2009 Melanoma Monday post. If anyone is interested, you can click the preceding links for more of an overview. I'm not going to try to give an overview here since I've done that several times in the past.

If anyone reading this post has melanoma, there are a lot of links on my sidebar with information about treatments, clinical trials, and general information. Also, a friend set up a site called Melanoma Resources which combined her links with mine as well as others. That site is divided into categories with melanoma organizations, information about stages, treatments, etc.

When I first started blogging, I was inspired by others with melanoma who I'd gotten to know who blogged. I almost exclusively talked about dealing with my diagnosis, side effects from surgery, and also used this site as a way of organizing my research about melanoma.

I always included my flower and other photography in posts but at that point the photographs were used more as punctuation marks for me to catch my breath. The words were why I blogged but the photography helped put me in a calmer place.

At this point I rarely blog about melanoma at all. With Melanoma Monday arriving tomorrow there are a few things that I didn't know until I had melanoma that I like to tell people. People with all skin types and all races can get melanoma. Since I tended to tan not burn, I thought I had a very low risk to get skin cancer. I didn't realize until I had melanoma that Bob Marley died from melanoma which spread to his liver and brain. I mention that because if I had known that, I would have realized that melanoma isn't only something blond, blue eyed, fair skinned people need to worry about. I love Bob Marley's music and find it sad that his life was cut short by melanoma.

My daughter has her Dad's light skin and blue eyes and when she wondered why I made her wear T shirts over her swim suit at the beach and kept reapplying sunscreen to her but not to me, I said, you have your Dad's skin type. The point is since my skin is naturally somewhat darker, I thought I was safe. Ironically, I ended up with melanoma. Also, after I started protecting my skin I realized it isn't naturally as dark as I thought it was since I always had some tan that lasted through the winter. The type of melanoma I had started with a nodular primary which was fairly symmetrical and as it got larger looked almost like a blood blister. The bad thing is that type of melanoma goes deep beneath the skin rather than spreading superficially on the top which means it's more likely to get into the lymph node system and or spread through the bloodstream to organs before being diagnosed. When diagnosed early all types of melanoma have a much better success rate of not spreading.

All melanoma can eventually spread but since nodular is often not diagnosed until later, the risk can be higher that it will have spread before diagnosed. Mucosal melanoma doesn't even start in the skin but starts in mucosal linings so that type is even higher risk of being advanced prior to diagnosis as is acral melanoma which starts under nail beds. For my purposes here though, I'm primarily talking about melanoma which originates in the skin which is the most common type. I've been very lucky because it has been 5 years since my primary was excised as well as the lymph nodes removed in the basin where it spread. I haven't had any recurrences elsewhere, knock on wood.

I would like to encourage everyone who hasn't had a skin check to get one because when caught early, the prognosis for melanoma is excellent. However, once it spreads it is often fatal. Also, if you have children with something on their skin which changes, in rare cases, children can get melanoma. Sunburns increase the risk but people who never burn and or are rarely in the sun can carry a genetic mutation which makes them more likely to get melanoma even without UV abuse. Well, I guess I'll stop here. I hope no one minds me piggy backing a melanoma post on a Today's Flowers post. To visit other sites with flowers around the world, please go to the home of Today's Flowers.

Photohunters: Black

This is another photohunters theme where the possible choices are endless. First, a Canada goose with a long black neck.

Reflections in the water which are black.

It's hard to shoot the sunset from my house once the trees leaf out because I end up with dense black silhouettes of the foliage.

I prefer the bare trees for shooting sunsets but in spite of all the black foliage, I liked these recent sunset shots.

Photohunters post their links at the Home of the Hunt beginning Saturday mornings.