State of the World

I've been failing in the end game for the last few days... I've been taking pictures and notes, but haven't managed to dedicate the computer time to getting blog entries actually published.  So here's the state of the world right now.  

The state of the world is lovely.  Warm and sunny and only lightly breezy.  This is the third day of perfect weather (and Friday was only a slight bit cooler) and I love it.  I can run and run and never think about the weather.  I can work in the garden -- and did I ever this weekend.  It's just... just... I can't even express.  Marvelous spring weather for the past few days. Here's just a bit of what I've been seeing...

• The first tick was found (not my me) on 4/14.  YEA!  Now we get to feel false (and real) creepy crawlies whenever we're out in the prairie or woods for the next 2 months!
• Pasqueflowers also reached their peak bloom on or around 4/14, when I took this photo. 

• Dandelions have been blooming for a little over a week now, but I didn't photograph one until Friday. 

• Crabapples leafed out -- this picture is from Friday, and by today they're even greener and leafier.  With them, the honeysuckles, the boxelder, and the lilacs (photo from today) leafing out, not to mention other shrubs like spirea, my blackcurrants... the understory has a definite green tinge to it. 

 

• The Norway maples are flowering -- their green-ish flowers fool people into thinking they've leafed out, but it's flowers first.  Red maples are also flowering (have been for a while, actually).  Sugar maples haven't started yet.  

• While we're on the subject of tree flowers, cherries have just started, and magnolias... they're in full and fragrant bloom, a full spectrum from whites and pinks to purples.  Really just a lovely treat. 

 

• Less pretty, but cottonwoods are catkining and actually the catkins are already falling like rain when you stand under the trees.  Soon they'll be sending off seeds like snow! 

• Celandine poppies started flowering this weekend...

• In the world of bulbs... daffodils are at or just past peak bloom.  Tulips are just starting, only a few varieties open.  Hyacinths are in full bloom, too. 

• In the insect world, I started seeing white butterflies all over this weekend.  Also ants, and those big fuzzy bumble bees.  And...
• I saw my first green darner!  It's dragonfly season!
• In the bird world, so much, and I'm not a good birder.  Wood ducks and yellow-rumped warblers.  Bob o'links.  Killdeer.  Buffleheads.  So much more...

OK, I think that'll be it for now... if that's not enough to process!

Happy Earth Week! (One day is not enough!)

Blooms

Celandine poppies

Prairie smoke

Center of ice stick tulips 

Almost pasqueflower 

Hepatica

Can't Keep Up!

Things are happening so fast out there that if I had enough time to blog every single day, it still wouldn't be enough.  I'd need to blog every hour to keep up with all the changes.  we're supposed to get some cooler weather starting tomorrow, so maybe that'll put the brakes on.

The bloodroot, which started to flower on Sunday,
can't handle the heat (perhaps) and by today have
dropped their petals!

We're at that point where, if you look across a field at a tree line or forest, the whole thing takes on a lime green glow... a haze of tiny leaf-outs and tree flowers in the springiest of greens just hangs there.  Our catalpa has started leafing out.  Maples are all flowering now, including the green-yellow flowers of sugar and Norway maples.  Serviceberries look green... everything is just popping out green.  Meanwhile, here are some blooming updates... though I apologize for the photos, I couldn't really see the screen too well and didn't realize they weren't coming out!  Plus, I'm at the stripey-world computer.

Our sedges are flowering rather strikingly.

Blurry celandine poppies bloomed this morning!  So lovely...

Oh, my!

Bluebirds and killdeers and herons, oh my!

Maple flowers and aspen catkins and pussy willows, oh my!

Celandine poppies and tulips emerging, oh my!

Have we SPRUNG?

A Yellow Day (Plus)

Celandine poppies first opened yesterday, and are all open today!

The marsh marigolds opened fully sometime this week...

Yellow maple flowers and yellow willow flowers give many trees a spring-green appearance.

Wild ginger's hidden burgundy flowers bloom among the leaf litter.

If this is any indication, my evil plot to have jewelweeds take over my side yard is working!

The most phenologically significant bird sighting I've had is baby goslings. I saw the brown and yellow fluff balls from the driver's seat of the car, however, so I didn't get a photo. But the egret was so close yesterday, I took its picture; and the tree swallow so shimmery in the sun...

Yellow! Etc.

Outside, lightning flashes and thunder crashes. The house shakes. It's the first storm of the spring. This following a 75 degree day with winds so strong that we saw branches fall in the woods. Some discoveries from today.

First celandine poppy in my yard.

Dandelion.

Forsythia.

Sunflower birdhouse gourd, painted by Naomi, recently hung by Naomi's mom.

And... some non-yellow things I noticed today...

Interesting beaver chew.
Very large Mayapple... maybe an Aprilapple?
False rue anenome.
Herd of turtles (I counted 7 painted turtles sunning themselves).
Mertensia (Virginia bluebells).

You'll pardon my absence at this phenologically exciting time of year. I was exercising a protest of the cold weather. I don't think the protest worked, but it made me feel good. Today seems finally a bit warmer... although it's still one of those days -- the sun is bright and the grass is greening and the days are lengthening and it seems like it should be warm outside and as soon as you open the door, you realize you've been hoodwinked. It is quite chilly out there.

Unfortunately, it seems, as is always the case, that the undesirables are the ones taking greatest advantage of the sunshine and scant warmth in the air. Dandelions and creeping Charlie are showing up in the yard, while the places where my spring ephemerals should be remain barren and brown. (I mean, unless there's a dandelion there.) I remember last year thinking plants wouldn't grow back and then they did... so I'm trying not to be too worried about them. But I guess that's just part of spring break.

And don't even get me started on the grass. The yard is starting to green up in many places, and already I am struggling with the grass problems I always have... where I want it (like the front yard) it's patchy, ratty and weak. Where I don't want it, like the vegetable garden, it's growing like gangbusters. (You'd grow there, too, if you could... it's the best soil, mostly sunny, the only place that gets watered... but the grass also grows unbidden in paver cracks, which wouldn't seem to be the best spot, and perennial beds...) I wish I didn't have grass at all, but it would simply be too expensive to replace it all with gardens in one year. Of course, I complain, but I have to say... most of my back yard has thick, green and mostly weed-free grass. It's just a few areas where it won't grow, and a few more where it won't stop, that seem to take over my brain and stop me from seeing the fine parts.

Anyhow, enough whining about turf grass. Here's some progress reports on some good guys:

Celandine poppies are popping up everywhere. I'm hoping, now that mine are very well established, for a beautiful display of many yellow flowers.
Shooting star starting to shoot.
Last year we put in 5 native black currants, thinking that edible landscaping plants was a genius idea (although last year being their first year, we didn't really get to eat any). Now I realize that there is another very real benefit... early leaf-out! In my yard, these are the first trees of shrubs to actually show their whole leaves, tiny though they may be. YEA!

The birds and the bees

The point of a flower, of course, is the seed. Spring's blooms are going to seed now (if they haven't already). Here's a look at celandine poppies as they go from flower to seed pod. (All the pictures were taken today; the plants started flowering early and still aren't finished, so they are simultaneously at all stages in the process...)

A new flower (next to a forming seed pod). The stamen haven't let go their pollen yet and everything looks fresh.
A fully open flower, displaying, at the base of the pistil, the swelling ovum which will become the seed pod. The pollen is mostly gone, which is good, because the petals, whose job is to call in the pollinators with their ultraviolet "Eat at Joe's!" signs, are starting to look ratty. They will fall off soon, leaving...
A newly-formed seed pod, pistil still attached. It's not large, less than 1/2 inch at this point, though the photo doesn't show this. It will grow until...
It's ready to start to burst open (the pistil will split into three strands soon...). At this point it's almost an inch long, and still bearing seeds. But soon they will pop out...
And it's popped open and distributed the seeds, which will grow tiny little celandine planties, some of which are already present under the parent plants!
Here is a ready-to-burst pod split open so the seeds inside are visible (also note split pistil in top left of photo).

Some other seeds forming...

1. Columbine plant showing seed pods and flowers.

2. Columbine seed pod, still green. It will turn brown and dry up, and the seeds, which look like poppy seeds , will spill out.

3. Anenome seed pod

4. Wild geranium seeds, brown and ready behind green and almost-there.

5. Prairie smoke, displaying the reason for its common name.

6. Pasqueflower.

This is not a seed, I recognize, but it is a cool cicada shell I found while braving the mosquitoes to attack the creeping charlie in the humidity, and activity which lasted half-hour, probably didn't help that much in the long run, and will leave me scratching for days.