Spring is Here...Oh Wait!..check the calendar, April 17 to May 17, 2018

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I feel like I’m emerging from a dark dream to find things changed. April 15 to 17 saw the return of winter. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that winter relapsed.

Winter just kept returning and returning…no spring yet but within 10 days…This: We adopted Rhys (Ryot).

Notice the date on the trillium shot and the date on the first pic. incredible what a short month has wrought.
We adopted Ryot or Rhys… and our outlook brightened a little. If I need him to heed me I have to call him Ryot. It was still cold and dark but another 10 days and we’re into May and the weather has changed dramatically. Wildflowers are out…but subdued by the slow warming of soil and water. Garden flowers are only emerging from the soil.

When it changed over night from early spring to early summer delight was rampant…wildflowers, birds, butterflies… but no bees. For the next week (approx) it was summer. The stream crested and subsided…the insects exploded… the birds were singing and nesting. I was saying to myself..:“oh please don’t give us any snow”…because during our hot spell the folks in Newfoundland got a foot of snow!… Thankfully we’ve missed the very cold but it has cooled off again. It sure was nice while it lasted and the moderation has brought out the flowering shrubs, and tree pollens (AAAHCHOOO)
The sweet green of spring, what is more soothing after the cold white of winter?

The red maple, siberian honeysuckle, spruce, eastern red cedar, and aegopodium..run amok.

Contrast the second pic from Apr. 17 to the grape vine on June 2nd… I still find it amazing.

Atlast the irises are blooming and the daphs were wonderful, but short lived…the roses are budding and I’m stripping the bushes of the army worms..the sawfly is trying to elbow it’s way in and I’m mushy fingered from squishing selected larvae. It is a concern that the beneficial insect population seems to have been effected by the late winter relapse. Few butterflies and fewer dragonflies than I’ve ever seen. One bright spot though..we have a lovely mother robin dashing to and fro looking for earthworms to feed her brood.
How many frogs can you fit on a lilypad? welcome peepers!

Tiny clump of leucojum…expanding with each spring is a perennial fave.

• 4 Jun, 2018
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