Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day to all my blogging friends!

(little 4 x 5 card..wc and ink and pencil)

And as long as the holiday invites a lot of red...here's yesterdays' "little" or "smallie".    Spring is here in central Florida and the strawberries are lovely on the farm stands now!  Azaleas are blooming and there are buds on the orange trees...blossoms soon to follow.  (They smell heavenly).  

Some rain this morning on the 14th but it will just bring out more flowers...even the cactus are blooming.  Only 71 for a high today but back into the 80s by Sunday.  

I know the midwest where I am from it is bitter this morning.  It's -9 in Madison, Wisconsin and -20 in Lac du Flambeau where our summer cabin is.  Oh my gosh.  

The legend of Valentine's is rather tragic...

Today is Valentine’s Day, the day on which we celebrate love, especially romantic love. The holiday was named after an early Christian priest, St. Valentine, who was martyred on February 14 in 269 A.D.

The tradition of exchanging love notes on Valentine’s Day originates from the martyr Valentine himself. The legend maintains that due to a shortage of enlistments, Emperor Claudius II forbade single men to get married in an effort to bolster his struggling army. Seeing this act as a grave injustice, Valentine performed clandestine wedding rituals in defiance of the emperor. Valentine was discovered, imprisoned, and sentenced to death by beheading. While awaiting his fate in his cell, it is believed that Valentine fell in love with the daughter of a prison guard, who would come and visit him. On the day of his death, Valentine left a note for the young woman professing his undying devotion signed “Love from your Valentine.”