on the morning of the month’s first day

4.30.22 ~ tulips in my garden

But May is a month to be enjoyed, not coldly discussed, and enthusiasm should thrill to the very finger-tips of every one who, on the morning of the month’s first day, hears the thrush, grosbeak, oriole, and a host of warblers as they great the rising sun. And rest assured, dear startled reader, that unless you are astir before the sun is fairly above the horizon you will never know what bird-music really is. It is not alone the mingled voices of a dozen sweet songsters; for the melody needs the dewy dawn, the half-opened flowers, the odor-laden breeze that is languid from very sweetness, and a canopy of misty, rosy-tinted cloud, to blend them to a harmonious whole, and so faintly foreshadow what a perfected world may be.
~ Charles Conrad Abbott
(Days Out of Doors)

26 thoughts on “on the morning of the month’s first day”

  1. What a beautiful tulip… do you know the cultivar name? I agree with the quote… nothing like the dawn chorus. I opened the front door this morning in order to hear our earliest risers this morning… such a treat this time of year.

    1. Thank you, Eliza. I have no idea what kind of tulip this is. The last time I planted any bulbs in my garden was in the late 1990s. It amazes me that some keep coming up through the landscaping fabric my brother-in-law put down in 2013 to keep weeds away when I stopped gardening. I agree, waking up to birdsong in the spring is the best part of the day!

  2. My internal sleep regulator is off balance. I was awake earlier than usual. Out on my front porch with Yorkie and coffee before the birds today made your poem post perfect for me today! I appreciate your tulips on this first day of May.

    1. So pleased that you enjoyed the tulips and the quote, along with your coffee and Yorkie’s company, TD! I’ve always been a morning person and so listening to the birds every morning is a blessing I will always feel grateful for.

  3. LOVE Tulips — and these are gorgeous! However, I might have a small bone to pick with Mr. Abbott. Bird-music can be breath-taking, regardless of when it’s heard! I’ve heard them early in the morning, at noon, and again in the evening, and all times are special. Sometimes they really go to town and have a lot to say, ha! Happy May Day, Barbara.

    1. Thank you, Debbie! So happy you enjoyed the tulips. 🙂 Of course birds sing beautifully at all hours. During the pandemic quarantine sometimes the ones around here would sing in the middle of the afternoon, so loud that my sister-in-law could hear them in the background over our video call connection! What I love about the early morning melodies, though, is the lack of competing traffic and human activity noise.

        1. We have a woodpecker (or two) in the neighborhood, as well. When they tap on the metal downspouts it definitely gets our attention! 🙂

    1. Thank you, Peggy. Spring is to the year like morning is to the day, fresh and new and full of possibility and promise. 🙂

    1. Thank you, Ally! I’m especially fond of tulips, too. 🌷 May is also the month of our wedding anniversary, making it meaningful to me.

  4. I love tulips and right now in Holland, Michigan they’re about to embark on Tulip Fest. It is supposed to be fabulous with thousands and thousands of tulips blooming at the same time. Last year I did a virtual 5K associated with Tulip Fest and took photos of tulips in the neighborhood, but I’d love to see this event some day.

    1. Thousands of tulips blooming at the same time sounds like a spectacular sight to see! Think of all the different colors they come in. I hope you’ll get to go one year. Its interesting, we have a couple of daffodil festivals in Connecticut but not any tulip festivals that I know of.

      1. It must be spectacular Barbara – they are all over the town, but planted in groups in several large areas – up to 700,000 tulips are in bloom simultaneously this week.

        1. In a town named Holland it seems like a dazzling Tulip Fest would be the logical community project. 🙂

          1. Barbara, I thought of you earlier today as I had told you about Tulip Time. I heard a news story that a large portion of Holland’s Tulip Festival closed down because we have a heat wave and the 80-degree temps caused all the tulips to open much quicker than normal. The news story said that these tulips, all from bulbs that originated in Holland, are great bloomers but tulips are used to the cooler temps found in their native Holland, so they all wilted and dropped their petals. People come from all over to see the tulips – that would be something that would happen to me. My mom and I planned a week’s vacation in Northern Michigan to view the foliage at peak time. I had to put in for vacation time early in the year and researched when peak time was. The leaves were all still green and not a bit of color yet.

          2. What a shame about the tulips, Linda. 🙁 Climate change is going to keep causing these kinds of disappointments for sure. I know what you mean about planning trips in anticipation of natural events that don’t arrive when expected. With us, it’s cloud cover obscuring things like last night’s lunar eclipse. So many times we thought we could catch the rare, for here, northern lights. No luck. For fall colors I pay attention to the daily color forecast but you can’t plan a trip on the spur of the moment like that. The one time I didn’t go on a whale watch off Cape Cod with the extended family they had a spectacular viewing. Every other time when I went there was not much to see.

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