I went for a walk at my favorite Botanical Gardens last night with some friends to celebrate a good friend’s birthday. Of course, being me, I spent much of the night snapping pictures of any bit of interesting nature that the early month of May had to offer me.

We had a long, hard winter and even the Botanical Gardens have not yet fully recovered but being experts they had a few beautiful pops of color to offer us (above) as we strolled through their various gardens. Also, luckily for me, I find the not quite blooming bits beautiful, too.

The weather was kind of perfect, with a nice breeze that never managed to get downright chilly. The company was excellent, some of my very favorite people were there – and we made a couple of new friends, too. This adorable ducky couple seemed to follow us from garden to garden and were completely unphased by the lot of us.

Good friends – check

Temperate weather – check

Getting in a good walk – check

Signs of spring – check

Blog post with lots of pretty nature pics – check

Enough calories burned to enjoy birthday cake – check

The weather is slowly giving us reason to feel optimistic about the days ahead. Knock on wood that there are indeed beautiful, floral days before us to look forward to.