TRAVELLING GNOME - and our first ever contest winners

 

I painted this cute little garden gnome as a fundraiser for the upcoming Winnipeg Home & Garden Show, where it will be auctioned off along with 9 others to raise money for the very worthwhile Winnipeg Harvest food bank.

Given how much we all know gnomes like to travel I thought I'd better show mine around town while we still had some time together but before I set him in his butterfly field.

Here he is buying tickets to the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra

Then off to the Manitoba Museum 

Followed by a stop at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre

  

Getting his caffeine buzz on at Parlour Coffee

Checking out the Artspace building to wrap up his cultural whirlwind tour of Winnipeg.

 A well deserved rest with his pal Suzie

I also asked readers of my Facebook page to share what they loved about spring, and I got some really great answers that I want to share with you below to get you excited (as if you are not already!) about the change of season:

 It's a fresh start....

...a time to learn and change last season's trials.

...feeling that sense of community again...

...the smell of rain.

Spring is a blank canvas and a full pallet of colors just waiting to create a new "one of a kind" work of art.

I love to watch all the beautiful flowers wrenching their way out of the ground, grasping towards the warm sun.

Such promise for the season ahead in the spring.

I love the way colour creeps back into the landscape - from the first soft green blades of grass to the hint of green in trees as leaves begin to unfurl and then a symphony of all kinds of shades of pinks as shrubs and trees blossom punctuated with the bright cheery splashes of reds and yellows from tulips and daffodils...ah, spring is fresh colour!

I look forward to the wonders of spring.

I can't wait to get in the garden, with soil under my nails and the sun beating down on me.

...seeds starting to sprout...

I love opening all of the windows in my house while I'm spring cleaning!

 I love the thought of renewal, and a new beginning.

Everything!

Thanks to everyone who entered, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your eloquent and inspiring responses.  Congratulations to Heather Lewis Neill & Janice E Cournoyer, who have each won a pair of tickets to the Home & Garden show in Winnipeg.