First Flowers

I know that a pussy willow isn't brightly colored, it has no showy petals... but a catkin is a flower and they're poking out and I'm saying it counts.

If you want brightly-colored petals, here's a lovely orange witch hazel flower. In the fall, I pictures yellow ones and claimed them as the last flowers of 2009. But this plant seems to have orange flowers that come after the snows rather than before. I'm not sure what's up. Both plants were planted as part of native plantings, not growing wildly, so... I'm guessing they're just different varieties, but I really don't know. Anyhow, that's two flowers today.

I was really hoping for the pink American Hazel flowers that I reported on March 19 last year, but I'm too early. (I also noticed that snowdrops were early in March last year, and I haven't even ventured to that part of the yard yet. An afternoon adventure!)In ice-world, there is still ice on the lakes, but it's clearing by the inlets where water moves. Today the flag was switched from green (safe for walking, which I'm not sure it was yesterday) to red (danger, Will Robinson, danger), so the it'll be soon!