Four days into official spring (the equinox came and went while I was in Atlanta, where spring is much further along than it is here!), we have one nice, warm day before we go back to chilly for the next week.  The frogs are taking full advantage, singing their comb-plucking song loudly in the wetlands.  

Here are other things I noticed:

Forsythia is blooming:

The pussy willow catkins have greened up with pollen: 

The Siberian elms are flowering (I know, the photo is terrible.  They're high up; I'm short.)  This is the first step that will lead to me pulling tons of tiny elm seedlings from all over my yard later this year.  Yea.

Cornelian cherry dogwood flowers have bees buzzing all around them -- I managed to get one in a picture!

And, at some point recently, the "pine" tree (it's not a pine but all the kids call it one, I believe it's a spruce) at the old homestead nearby has fallen over.  This large tree marked the site of the front yard of an old farmhouse that was razed in the 70's.  The tree was a favorite of students, so it's sad to see it fallen!  RIP, spruce/pine tree.

Tree Flowers and Gusting Winds

I took this photo yesterday to show how the aspen catkins have progressed from grey puffballs to pendulous flowers that are showing their inner green. 

I noticed this morning that the elms have started flowering.  I don't think I'll get a photo, though, as it's difficult to take pictures of tiny tree flowers (full stop) but it's really difficult when the wind is blowing at over 20 mph with gusts (frequent ones) at over 40 mph.  Twigs won't hold still.

Yeah, today is not my favorite type of weather.  Temperature in the 40s, intermittently rainy, and constantly windy.  But I guess this is the price of spring's arrival.  Over night I was awakened by thunder and lightning at one point, and by high winds -- they were that noisy -- at another point.   

Some Sketches

 I am pretty out of practice with sketching.  And I haven't the time to work on it.  I wish I did; maybe now with daylight savings time... Anyhow, today I stole about 15 minutes while eating my snack and tried three very quick sketches, then later a fourth... but I didn't really "get into" or feel great about any of them.  Ah, well.  They still illustrate what's happening today!

Siberian Elms Flowering

First Forsythia Flowers

Yesterday, the forsythia bushes had small yellow buds on them.  In 24 hours, they grew about a centimeter and some of them opened up.  It's really amazing -- you could probably literally see them grow if you had the patience.

Lilacs Buds Begin to Look Like Leaves

Crocus

Other notables today:

• 2 daffodils bloomed in our yard, although most are not even close.
• Scilla started blooming today.
• Temperatures topped 80 degrees F.

April Flowers

I put 3 daffodils in a dragonfly frog-vase. I endeavored to sketch them. I thought it would be simple. Such a familiar trumpet shape... not so. They were quite difficult. I'm not entirely satisfied with the results, but I suppose you can judge for yourself.

I thought this photograph made a simple pussy willow catkin, newly green with pollen, look rather grand. Imposing, even.

Forsythia (below left) provide quite a pop of color... though they're not my favorite flower or shrub, they are definitely noticeable. Not like the diminutive flowers of the elms (below right), whose purple anthers are so dark as to seem brown and whose small stature renders them unnoticeable.

I love pasqueflowers. The native crocus, I always thought... a short plant with a purple flower, over an inch long, that blooms early, at a time when your soul desperately needs to see something blooming. And, of course, Aldo Leopold immortalized them in A Sand County Almanac, giving their appearance in spring a new, almost patriotic dimension.

"Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher 'standard of living' is worth its cost in things natural, wild, and free.

"For us of in the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as free speech."

It was with that in mind that I sought out pasqueflowers for my own yard. It wasn't easy. The genetically native ones aren't that common even when you do find purveyors of native plants, and they're not growing plentifully so that you could go and dig one up someplace. I went to countless native plant sales... some had plant lists available, with pasqueflower on them... and then I arrived (right at the beginning, to be sure they didn't sell out, because I was certain that everyone else wanted these gems as much as I did) and found out that they never had pasqueflower in the first place. They thought they were going to, but... and I went to sales with no lists in hopes of finding one. In the end, over the years, I got 5 native ones and one from a garden center that was a little different. Some of them came back for a second year, but clearly, my place isn't good for pasqueflower. I have put them in 3 different areas, places that are sunny and shadier, and this year... none came back. I am a bit sad. I was still hopeful, see? I went out and looked each day at the spot where the nursery tags still poke out of the earth. I thought at least that not-quite-native one would come back, it was probably bred to live in a garden-type place. I thought maybe they were late and I really hadn't given up on them... until this morning. Returning to school, I saw this:

Not only has this pasqueflower emerged and bloomed, but the flowers are starting to brown! So I'm thinking mine are all dead. (It's probably partly due to me, though... I let things get too crowded; I can't bear to cut back the native plants I put in myself, even when they spread and make babies and get in the way of the other native plants. So I blame myself. Anyhow, I'm done with them. After 5 years, 6 plants, and many hours searching, I have resigned myself to the fact that pasqueflowers are among the plants that don't want to live in my yard, of which there are several. Oh, well.)

I'm sure I missed plenty of other things at school in my week away. One of them is the flowering of the little elm trees, which have apparently already shed their reproductive parts and are beginning to make seeds.

Here, almost-ready-to-do-something-exciting Juneberries and lilacs.

I'll let you know what else I've missed...