Ick.

The nice weather lasted... 1 day!  Yesterday was rainy -- a cold front coming through, and by evening the rain was really sleet.  This morning dawned COLD.  And muddy.  

Still, spring is marching on.  Goldfinches are gold, and daffodils are blooming.  Some shrubs -- black currants, lilacs -- are starting top leaf out, so that we can see a springy green haze in some places when we look across lawns and fields.  Catkins are finally fluffy on willows, aspen, and other trees...  

We're Blooming and Leafing

There is a lot going on right now.  And a lot of it is going on early.  Most people I talk to make some comment about how the weather is freaking them out.  My response is something along the lines of, it may be freaky, but we can't do anything about it, so let's enjoy it... because if you ignore the fact that its mid-March, it's perfect weather... not too hot for an early morning run, warm enough to read outside all afternoon, but not so warm that you get uncomfortable weeding, and then cool enough in the night time for sleeping under the covers with open windows.  

BUT... if you want to add more data to the freak-out part of it... I could include photos of about a hundred things, but no one would bother to scroll through them.  Here are some highlights. 

Violet

 Violets flowered today, which have previously been noted in early April...

Bloodroot

The bloodroot started to open... over a month earlier than last year (April 21 they looked like this), and a couple of weeks before 2010 bloom-time.

Hepatica

Hepatica isn't quite open but it's close, I mean, this flower will be open tomorrow.  Again, this is exactly how they looked on April 21 last year.  Same with the trillium and mayapples (Aprilapples, this year?), below.

Trillium

Mayapples poke through the soil.

Ginger leaves emerging from the earth.

Other things to report...

• A lot of surprising leaf-outs, including...
• Crab apples leafing out (3/16)
• Willows catkining and leafing out (3/17)
• Wasps extremely active (3/18)
• Currants leafing out (3/17) 
• Maple-leaf viburnum leafing out (3/18)
• And today, there were tons of millipedes undulating their way across the trail.  I was trying to avoid them, but it became too difficult, and eventually, I had to just decide that some myriapods are in the wrong place at the wrong time.
• Spice bushes flowering (since last week, but I liked this photo:) 

Photo Journal

Currant flowers, 4-22.

First Jacob's Ladder, 4-22.

4-23. Milkweeds are some of the latest plants to emerge, so when their bullet-shaped seedlings come up, I know it's time to start looking for early signs of SUMMER.

4-23. Pasqueflower seeds.

Redbud flowers, 4-25.

Tulip studies, 4-25.

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!