These warm spring days, like yesterday and today, it's like waking up to a new world every day. You may recall that on Tuesday, I mentioned that bluebells and marsh marigolds were not yet blooming. Well, yesterday:

There you have 'em.

Another cool discovery of yesterday was this mayfly:

This one was on our deck, and then today another individual of the same species landed on my shirt at school. Clearly, this species of mayfly is having its day in the sun, so to speak. Mayflies have one of the best ordinal names -- ephemeroptera. The ephemeral insect. The adults live only a day, maybe two. In that time, they have one purpose in life -- to mate. They don't even eat! Like odonata but even more extreme, ephemeroptera are really water-dwelling creatures, living most of their lives as nymphs, where, unseen by humans, they play an important role in aquatic food chains.

Today, I had a very bust day at school and I didn't even carry my camera, so I missed shots of frogs and swallows. Actually, the best discovery of today was what I believe to be a sprouting waterlily seed. It was in the water, and kids thought at first that it was a small pinecone. When we pulled it out, it clearly wasn't a pinecone, and it had some roots -- less than an inch long -- and and shoots -- equally small, with minuscule, round leaves at the end. It was pretty cool.

At home, though, my yard is filled with new colors...

Redbuds haven't actually flowered yet, but all of a sudden the buds change the brown branches to purple.
In my yard, all the tulips opened today. They weren't the first -- I've been seeing tulips for over a week, but in my yard they all -- red, yellow, mixed, orange -- opened today.... as did the first bellworts.

So what will tomorrow bring?!? (Cold, is the predicted answer.)