Where I grew up, tulips were just something you heard about and maybe saw plastic reproductions of them in the craft store. You knew that they came from Holland but you weren't really sure of anything else because you'd never seen one in real life. Though I'm sure they were available for a price, I don't really even remember seeing them in florist shops much. There were lots of other lovely flowers - desert flowers are beautiful in their delicate fragility - but as for tulips, they just weren't around. So I love early Spring when I get to watch the tulips bloom here. We've added quite a few bulbs to our flower beds in the past couple of years and our front yard is starting to look like a tiny little botanical gardens. Which is good because it's a lot shorter trip home from that one. I especially enjoy watching how they open and close every morning and evening. It's like nature's version of an alarm clock.

Yesterday morning, The Caterpillar was outside enjoying the cool morning air after The Dormouse got on the bus and I sat outside with her since it's been ridiculously hot for April and I wanted to spend at least some time outside. I set up my camera on a tripod, aimed it at some of our tulips and took a photo every five minutes until they opened up fully. Let's just call it "poor man's time lapsed photography."

Edited to add: I just figured out that if you size your browser window just right and then use the page up and page down keys, you can make it look like a stop motion film. In a related story: Imabiggeek.