Kid's Wildflower Contest - Violet Painting

Forest Zoo presents his wildflower painting a violet. At age 8, I am very excited to participate. I can't wait until the votes are counted. I hope you like my painting. To vote go here and follow the directions. Voting will be open until Thursday, March 6, at 6:00 P.M. PST.

Crocus Hopes

Today Mama and I went outside. We had fun looking for flowers and we found some crocus buds.

The crocus buds were little buds. It was really cold outside. It was really windy too. They didn't have any sign of the flower except the for the bud. We just had a snow on Sunday, and there are still patches of snow in places. Before we found the buds we found the crocus leaves, and then we looked closely and saw the precious little bud that will bring a flower.

Daffodil sprouts. The same time we went outside we went found daffodil sprouts. They were big and green because they had come come up before the crocus. They were tall and wide, but they still had their precious little promise of a flower; they had their leaves. Soon they will have a bud, then the bud will grow taller. It might even grow an inch in a day. I remember last year when we went to church, there was just a bud, and when we came home, there was a flower. I remembered that before the flower bloomed there was just a plain bud on the stem. When the day was over, I went to show Emily Rose, and it had grown an inch. It kept growing about an inch a day.

Narcissus sprouts. The same time we went out, we saw some narcissus sprouts. They weren't even 1/8 of an inch tall, but they were there. They were still yellow. They probably didn't poke out of the ground more then a day ago. They didn't have any sign of them ever having a flower. They were just closed leaves. But soon they will have taller leaves. They grow about the same rate as daffodils. They are so pretty. I think they look like happy children smiling with bright sun around them. They are they are cutest of bulb flowers. They are my favorite. I like how the leaves look. They aren't as dark as daffodils.

Dandelion bud. When we were starting to walk inside. We saw a dandelion bud. It was half open. You could see the yellow petals even. It look cold. Maybe it was shivering. Maybe it had woken up too early, but it still was there. He was probably wondering where his friends the honey bees were to polinate him. But he will wait a while before the honey bees come. There was almost no insects out there at all. We did find a few box elder bugs, but they don't do much polinating.

The Dandelion that Turned Too Many Pages

Mama is hosting a Wildflowers in Winter theme on her blog. I have written a story so that I can participate too. I hope you like it! You can see what others are posting by taking a look at her blog.

The Dandelion that Turned Too Many Pages
By Forest Zoo

Once upon a time there was a dandelion. On New Year’s Morning the little dandelion realized that it was the first of January. So he walked over to his calendar and turned what he thought was a page. Soon he decided to take a nap. He was supposed to take a nap for a few months, but said to himself, “I don’t want to sleep for that long. I want to take a nap for one or two days instead.’

So he snuggled down in his downy pillow. In a few days he woke up and looked at his calendar. He said, “That’s odd. It says it is May. “

His best friend, Billy the Busy Honey Bee, turned the pages of his calendar every month through out spring, hoping that Dandelion would bloom when he saw the page that said May. He bloomed only when the pages said April, May, June, or July. If they didn’t say that, he just went to sleep, until they did say that again.

But when he woke from his nap, the calendar did say May, so he decided to bloom. He said to himself that he must have taken a lot longer nap then he thought he would. So he sent up his lovely yellow flower, Then he noticed that none of his dandelion friends were blooming. He said, “That’s odd, because they usually bloom at the same time. He didn’t see Billy the Honey Bee flying around. He felt the air temperature. It was way colder then it was supposed to be in May. He thought that it might have been an extra long winter and that it hadn’t warmed up yet. Maybe Billy was somewhere else today. But Billy had hundreds of more friends. At least one was flying around in April and May searching for fruit tree blossoms, or dandelions. He scratched his head.
“HMM. That’s odd.” He had never not seen Billy the Bee out, and he had lived for at least five years. He was one of the oldest Dandelions around. He was much older then all the bees in the whole hive.

Before long he felt something oh, so very cold on his bright yellow blossom. He shivered. He shivered again. Right away another fluffy white cold thing land on his blossom. Then another and another followed. They kept falling and falling out of the sky. He wondered what was wrong. Everything was different. Before long everything was white and oh, oh, so cold. He was shivering , shaking and shivering his dandelion teeth. He was now starting to be afraid. He wonder what was happening. He had never experienced this before. He was dumbfounded and didn’t know what to do. He knew that he didn’t get help soon, he was going to die.

“What was that?” It looked something like his friend the fly. He lived up in the sky. The fly looked down at the poor little dandelion. “Why are you out now. It is January 3. It is too cold for flowers. Why don’t you go back to bed and wait for spring?”

But the flower protested. “But my calendar says it is May. Oh, I remember, it was New Year’s Day. Maybe I turned too many pages. Maybe I should go back to bed.

So he went back to bed and slept until Billy the Bee came and turned the page to April, and woke him up.

The End.