… said Linda Schaub while channeling Fred Rogers.
I was already a preteen, not a preschooler, when the TV show “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” hit the airwaves. I am sure it had all the sweetness and charm of MY favorite preschool TV programs including “Romper Room” and “Captain Kangaroo” with the Captain’s fun cast of characters, including my favorite, Shari Lewis and her puppet named Lamb Chop. Every kid in those days had their own Lamb Chop so they could be a puppeteer just like Shari Lewis. Afternoons I was parked in front of the TV to watch “Captain Andy” and “The Mickey Mouse Club” – how I wished I could be a Mouseketeer, but I had to settle for donning my “ears cap” and singing the theme song off-key, but with great gusto.
So, on a sunny Easter Monday, as I strolled through the neighborhood, camera in hand, I entertained myself with a fun flashback of childhood memories, all brought on by the phrase “It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood.”
My treasure trove of photos and narratives for excursions taken in 2023 now has dwindled down to three and I have one more Winter 2024 walk to share next week, so this is fresh fodder! While these days I usually drive back and forth to the Park to give the car a little run, I walked that same two-mile round trip route for many years and, along the way, I’ve come to know each home where those Spring flowers pop up every April, so I aimed to track down those blooms and photograph them.
We’ve certainly had enough showers to encourage those April flowers. In fact, I knew if I didn’t take my stroll Monday morning to glean pictures, the upcoming week of predicted gusty winds, torrential rain showers and light snow would likely put the kibosh on picture-taking as those pretty flowers would be bedraggled looking.
So here’s the best of the bunch of those early bloomers.
Dark purple Crocuses flourished at the base of a tree …
… alongside neighboring Snowdrops and Violets.
I like both the faintly striped and solid lavender-colored Crocuses nestled in last year’s leaves …
… but don’t these yellow Crocuses look a little out of place?
The sunny yellow Daffs were cheery; some were fully open and others still closed up tightly.
A pretty-in-pink Hyacinth …
… and a sprinkling of “Spring Beauties” were reminders of how hardy these plants are to re-emerge year after year. We may have had an El Niño Winter, but a Polar Vortex also parked itself over Southeast Michigan in mid-January bringing brutally cold temps.
Unfortunately there were no tulips in this Spring flowers mix – their sturdy leaves are just beginning to push through the still-frozen earth. So, that will be a theme and a song (think Tiny Tim) for another post.
I am joining Terri Webster Schrandt’s April 7th 24th Sunday Stills Challenge: April Flowers.
Linda Schaub
WALKIN', WRITIN', WIT & WHIMSY 
A beautiful day, indeed, with all the beautiful little flowers popping out.
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It sure is nice to see these Spring flowers Rebecca, though it is still pretty cold here. Any color to our still-blah landscape is appreciated. You were likely seeing these beauties about two months ago already! The Forsythia bushes may be next.
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What a nice day. Wonderful all little flowers pooping out. Beautiful spring flowers 🌹🌷🌾🍂🍁🌼🌻🪴🌵🌳 Nice natural beauty.
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After the blah landscape of Winter, it is nice to see color again Raj.
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Yes,Linda again.. Repost it’s. Last one pic is nice !
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Glad you liked them Raj … next is Tulips which will bloom in another two or three weeks.
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Okay good ,Linda thanks!
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I used to have a whole bunch of those little blue flowers, but we must have put too much mulch down last year. Come to think of it we had some in the lawn too and I haven’t seen any. Hmmmmm…. I used to have crocus too, but I watched a chipmunk dig up all the bulbs and eat them years ago and I haven’t tried since. We DO have daffodils that are trying to bloom now. Deer and chipmunks apparently don’t like them. Turns out Penny would like to bite the buds off…always something.
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My father lost all his tulips he ordered from Holland (not Holland, Michigan) many years ago … boy was he mad. I haven’t seen the bunnies around here lately, but they liked chomping on my bleeding heart, so I finally gave up on it. My friend in NY lives on the fringe of a forest and she has given up on planting anything due to the deer. They were especially found of her hostas. Yes it is always something – Penny with the daffodils. 🙂
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Beautiful flowers!
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Finally a little color for our blah landscape Anne. Here in SE Michigan our flowers are trying to catch up with the flowers you posted maybe two months ago. 🙂
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A lovely bunch Linda 😀
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Glad you liked the Brian – the Tulips come next in two or three weeks. We load slowly here in SE Michigan. 🙂
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and did you pick a few for a home vase?
Spring flowers seem to be always smiling somehow!
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I should have Wayne, but I would have had to trespass … but it was tempting. The Tulips come next in two or three weeks. They are a welcome sight since we are still rather blah, though the flowering trees are starting to open up and they’re pretty. Since we’re the same age and grew up in the same area, did you watch Captain Andy when you were a kid? He was a former Canadian Mountie and he was based in Hamilton and his show was on before or after the Mickey Mouse Club show. It was an interesting way to learn as he was very entertaining.
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Such beautiful and colorful flowers!! I can’t believe you’re going to have another bout of wintry weather. It’s April, already!
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Esther, the weather folks were all wrong on this weather forecast. I “get” they rely on models now and not so much on their knowledge, but they predicted a wintry mix for Friday and we had brief snow flurries. They told us the weather for the eclipse would be great, then they predicted clouds, then rain at 3:15 … it rained last night, but was done by 8:00 a.m. And we had a beautiful day for the eclipse. I did not watch it – there were traffic jams everywhere since we had 100% totality in some places. Finally a little color for our blah landscape and the tulips should be up next in a couple of weeks.
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Oh wow, you were in the path of totality! How cool. I can imagine the traffic and flocks of people out to see the solar eclipse. It would have been cool to have seen it, but getting out there would have been a pain and then you have to get the glasses. The news will have ongoing coverage of it and it’ll be like you were there.
Glad to hear the weather was pleasant for the day, as people must’ve been out and about for the eclipse. Yep, the weather people don’t get it right all the time. lol
We sat outside our garage this morning with our glasses and saw the partial eclipse! It was pretty cool to see it and we spent a few hours last night working on a poster board for the eclipse. It wasn’t due for anything, but I’m the teacher so we printed out a bunch of visuals and info and glued it on a board.
You need some spring flowers and colors in your area!
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I just had the 9:00 p.m. news on and the traffic reporter said the traffic jam, reportedly not moving for one hour, was finally getting a big better as to traffic flow. Yes, Lake Erie Metropark was telling people not to go to Luna Pier or Ohio, but to go there instead. If you don’t have a Metropark pass it was $10.00 to get in. I have a pass so I could have gone. Cool about the eclipse board because the local astromer from Cranbrook said partial eclipses are more common and you won’t have to wait as long. Our next total eclipse like we had today will be in 2099 … yes, 2099, not a typo! Yes, any color to break up the blah right now is appreciated!
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Beautiful flowers. Spring flowers are always so appreciated after the long cold winter.
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Yes, they are, especially when it’s still a little blah-looking everywhere (except dandelions – never blah looking and they have arrived).
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Miss Linda……………………………i don’t know if you got any comment that I sent to you on the spring flowers
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Yes, I did and I will e-mail you to let you know that I did. Are you having problems commenting? I saw my first goslings today … it seems a little early for goslings.
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Lamb Chop! Oh I’d forgotten about that cute little puppet of snuggly joy. I watched some of the TV shows you did, but never heard of Captain Andy. Maybe a local fellow? We had Lucy’s Toyshop which I adored.
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Ally, I think I wore my Lamb Chop puppet out playing with it. We had fun shows when we were kids. Captain Andy was a local TV show based in Hamilton, Ontario. He was a retired Mountie and would talk about life as a mounted policeman and his horse. Even though it was an educational program, he made it fun. I’m guessing that Lucy’s Toyshop was a regional TV show as we did not have it here in SE Michigan. We missed out on Peanuts and Sesame Street.
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Good morning from Portland, OR, Linda. Your crocuses are so pretty! I guess bulb flowers like these, tulips and daffies, are really alive this time of year, even in our early spring climates. It’s nice you can walk in your area and see all these beauties! I found the tiny one I posted in a neighbor’s flower bed in Spokane Valley, but haven’t seen any in our rural neighborhood. We have the opportunity while here in Portland this week to visit the Wooden Shoe Tulip farm this Wednesday. I can’t wait to collect new photos. Thanks for sharing all your beauties with us before your storm hits! Have a great week.
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It’s nice to see color right now Terri and the grass has greened up all of a sudden too. Maybe we have finally turned a corner (fingers crossed). The Wooden Shoe Tulip farm in Portland sounds fun. A fellow blogger from Ohio visited Holland, Michigan during the Tulip Festival last year and she had some gorgeous photos she shared on her blog. Have fun!
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My kids (and I) used to love Mr. Rodgers. In the neighborhood brought back fond memories of us all watching together just before I would make dinner in those days.
Lovely daffodil photos. Daffs are my favorite flower and they had a good blooming season here in SE PA. They are hanging on due to cool, rainy weather last week and the tulips are just beginning to open. Much appreciated after the grays and browns of winter!
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Those are nice memories Laurie … I hope they have shows like that for young kids now. We missed Peanuts and Sesame Street as we were too old by then.
We had a warm day today and I suspect most of the daffodils that were closed are open by now. You are always ahead of us with the flowers and they are appreciated after the blah landscape the last five or six months!
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This is an absolute precious post Linda! I love the photos of your spring flowers on an Easter walk in your neighborhood. Very sweet.
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Glad you liked the post and the flowers in the neighborhood TD. The two pictures in this post with the bunny and the frogs are from a homeowner with a corner house and double lot. They have no grass, just ivy ground cover, rock gardens and flowers with statuary. It is a very cool place to visit as they have lots of bird feeders and birdbaths as well. I got the daffodil and hyacinth pics from there. In the Spring, they have lots of tulips, mostly pink. I try to time it to visit at peak blooming time; now I can take a longer walk and stop there more often to check it out.
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I love how bulbs appear again and again each year. They are like colorful gifts from the soil.
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Yes, after a very blah landscape since November, it is wonderful to see them. The tulips should be here in another two weeks or so.
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Lovely to see the bulbs springing forth!
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It is always great to see these Spring flowers Eilene as our landscape is still blah, although today we got to 76 and the trees began leafing out. A few days ago we had snow. Mother Nature is giving women a bad name as to indecisiveness.
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Spring flowers are my favorite, so much color! What a beautiful walk to the park Linda!
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Mine too Diane – it is like all of a sudden we’re introducing a little color to our blah and boring landscape. Today we got to 76 and the flowering trees are out, trees are leafing out and there are dandelions everywhere!
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love this post and your flowers. Great choices.
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Thank you Kirstin, it is so nice to see some color instead of the blah landscape. Spring in a four-season state means there is something to look forward to in early April. I have to make the rounds for the tulips as there are some houses with a beautiful pink display. I will be on “tulip watch” … if they bloom and there’s a big wind, the petals are on the lawn. That small window of opportunity.
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I love those striped purple crocuses! So many pretty flowers on your first beautiful weekday walk in your neighborhood. My oldest son loved watching Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood when he was a preschooler. He would drop every toy he was playing with when it came on, and hung on Mr. Rogers’ every word. When it was over he went back to playing with his Legos and Matchbox cars.
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They were my favorite color too – very dainty striping and they made the yellow crocuses look a little garish next to them. I have heard wonderful things about Mr. Rogers interacting with children on and off the show and what a great people person he was. I remember hearing the song many times over the years and especially when there was a movie made with Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers and I saw a few videos about him then. Have you seen the movie Barbara? I was thinking of renting it on Amazon Prime.
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No, I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I think I will try to rent it, too.
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What beautiful spring flowers! I haven’t seen many except for some of the flowering trees around here. But your photos remind me of a house I rented that had daffodils popping up randomly all around the yard and most of the back yard was violets which was beautiful but had to be mowed down once in a while.
Other than Captain Kangaroo, I don’t remember a lot of children’s shows. I know my brothers and I went to a live taping or showing of a local children’s show, but I’ve forgotten his name. We used to rush home from school to watch Batman and when I was in Kindergarten, I was a morning kid, I watched Dark Shadows with my mother.
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They look so cheery Zazzy and today we zoomed up to 76F and the flowering trees came out, the trees leafed out and lots of dandelions too. It is much more colorful now. The house where I took the photos of the daffodils and hyacinth (with the yard art) has a corner lot and they have only ground cover, no grass and what isn’t ivy is flowers and rocks and yard art. It is fun to go see in the Spring. I’ll return to take photos of their tulips, mostly all pink – they are gorgeous.
I lived in Oakville, Ontario and the Captain Andy Show was on in the afternoon. He was a retired Mountie and he’d talk about his adventures and his horse. It was educational yet fun. He was on a Hamilton station, so he was local. I watched Batman too. I remember Dark Shadows – it was on in the afternoon here, maybe around 4:00 p.m.
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Oh, I bet Captain Andy was cool. Kind of Captain Kangaroo but with a real person. I found the show I was thinking about, Torey and Ol’ Gus. I don’t really remember much about the show just that game where they put stuff on a tray and then cover it up – then you have to figure out what’s missing. I’m still not any good at that game!
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No, we didn’t have Torey and Ol’ Gus here – sounds like it would be fun though. I’ll bet a lot of those shows when we were young were not syndicated, so that’s why. When I got older, it was all the animal shows, like “Animal Kingdom” and “National Geographic” and “Jacques Cousteau” … “must see TV” back in those days. I don’t have a working TV anymore, just a really old style with the bulbous back on it that is from the 1990s and I cancelled my cable in 2010, so if I can get something online like Peacock which comes free with my internet or Amazon, I can watch it and also PBS where I watched “All Creatures Great and Small” but that is only on for seven weeks every January/February.
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I do love purple flowers, very pretty. Also, I loved Lamb Chop! How cute was he? Did you get The Friendly Giant where you lived? Or maybe that was just Canada. He was an actual man who lived a castle with Rusty the Rooster and Gerome the Giraffe. Strange combo isn’t it? It was a great show and I never missed it. I like remembering all the stuff from the past, it’s a lot of fun and a lot of nostalgia.
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Susan, those purple flowers were so pretty and Spring-y looking. A lot more flowering trees came out today as it was 76F/24C. A ton of dandelions too. I don’t remember that show. I lived in Oakville and the Captain Andy Show was on in the afternoon. He was a retired Mountie – he’d tell us about his adventures and his horse from back when he was a Mountie. It was fun and educational. He was on a Hamilton station so we go it clear on our TV. I like taking a step back in time sometimes and the simple joys we had back then.
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You and I watched the same shows as kids, Linda. With Romper Room wasn’t it “Miss Marianne”? I don’t remember where I saw Shari Lewis – maybe on the one of the variety shows back then. And you’re right; Mister Rogers was a little past our time but I still saw enough episodes to remember some of the characters (“Mr. Green Jeans”?) My parents were very strict when it came to watching TV, so it’s a wonder we saw any of these shows at all.
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We watched a lot of wholesome shows Dave. My parents were strict about everything, but also about what I watched and after I got a little older it was Lassie, The Wonderful World of Disney and Animal Kingdom and I think those were on Sunday night, so homework was done and I was in my jammies ready to go to bed when they ended. I remember “Mr. Green Jeans” from Captain Kangaroo and I think Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop were on other TV specials – they were so popular at the time. I’m sorry we missed Mister Rogers because I have read a lot of good things about how he interacted with not only kids, but everyone he met.
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Ah, the Wonderful World of Disney – pretty sure we never missed an episode (and you had to watch them live!) We also watched Wild Kingdom (Marlin Perkins!) but it didn’t have the same appeal simply because Disney offered more variety from week to week. Such different times back then, right?
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They were the best of times Dave. Disney was more movies – all those wonderful animal movies, some where I read the book like “Rascal” or “Old Yeller”. I can hear them announcing “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” … I learned a lot from those shows and my parents and I watched National Geographic and we got the magazine and watched Jacques Cousteau’s specials. There was a lot of learning going on outside of the schoolroom. I guess today’s kids learn about nature going to Metroparks or the National Parks. I do see a lot of parents with kids on weekends hiking or biking through the Metroparks where I go, so that’s a good thing, because I wonder if they have shows like these now that are geared for kids like we enjoyed when we were young.
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Beautiful photos (and flowers) as always!
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Glad you liked them Linda – the colorful days of Summer in SE Michigan. We are gettin’ there, a bit slowly.
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Our daffodils just opened this week as did the forsythia and we are starting to see dandelions. We went to the green house and bought pansies before Easter but kept them inside until this week as well. I know they are supposed to be cold tolerant, but I didn’t want to lose them to and overnight freeze. So happy spring is here, though we really don’t need these “April showers”.
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I remember how nice your cold-weather tolerant pansies looked in the past when you showed us photos of them. Good thing you didn’t plant them as all the rain might have left them beaten up and bedraggled and it’s going to get colder again on the weekend. I agree with you on the April showers – where are we getting all this rain from – more rain most days next week after back-to-back soggy days today and Friday.
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The forecast I saw predicted warmer (60’s and 70) temps for the weekend. That’s what I’m hoping for. We don’t need another soggy year like last year that’s for sure.
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I was happy to see Saturday and Sunday were mostly rain-free, but Saturday wind is gusting 35-30 mph most of the day, so that’s not great. I hope we won’t have a soggy year like last year either – plus the ticks and mosquitoes are going to be worse due to the mild Winter, plus this cicada invasion may all make 2024 a forgettable year.
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Great pics, Linda! I think it was that Gorilla who was good at signing who really was infatuated with Mr. Rodgers. Then they had Mr. Rodgers meet with the Gorilla at one time. I think the Gorilla’s name was KoKo. Ah, here it is:
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Glad you liked the photos – the first blooms in the neighborhood and after two days of torrential rain and these 45-50 mph winds today, I hate to think what they look like now. I remember reading about KoKo the Gorilla years ago – maybe in “National Geographic Magazine” – thank you so much for sending this video to me Tom. I really enjoyed it.
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I spent lots of time with Captain Kangaroo! My favorite character was Bunny Rabbit, who never failed to be ready with some prank involving ping pong balls. Mister Rogers came after my time, but from what I have read, he was a genuinely wonderful person.
Just as wonderful are your photos of these beautiful spring flowers!
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I loved Captain Kangaroo and never missed a show. I remember Bunny Rabbit, Mr. Green Jeans and Shari Lewis with Lamb Chop – good memories. I would like to see the movie about Mister Rogers starring Tom Hanks one day. Glad you liked my spring flowers JP – now it is all about tulips.
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