A new Navy vessel built in Wisconsin was commissioned in Duluth, MN, today and will sail through the Great Lakes and down to its station in Florida. The new navy vessel is in better shape than this old fishing boat which has seen too many sunsets.
Old Boat Sunset
The weather was against the poor marsh marigolds this spring as a few days ago they were swallowed up by rushing waters from the heavy rainfall and covered by debris. Then a couple days later, the hail storm striped nearly all the blossoms off as I only spotted less than a dozen yellow flowers on the half mile stretch of road.
Gone Until Next Year
Today the lawn was white from tree blossoms just opening up, but the petals fell prematurely because of some other white stuff – the hard, frozen stuff called hail. It stripped leaves off the trees and flower petals, dented cars, and anything else outside. And I wonder what my nesting duck thought about banging hail on the duck house. There was some one inch diameter hail left on the ground three hours after it fell.
Not Good White
The path through my woods reveal patches of blue and pink along the edges from the Virginia Bluebells. The native wildflower pink buds turn to a pretty blue when the blossoms open up.
Pretty Blue
Among the blues, yellows and orange colors of birds, a black and white bird may not command much notice until the Rose-breasted Grosbeak displays its front.
A Rosy Front
The flower spring season seems to be compressed as flower varieties opened a few days ago are already done for the season instead of lasting longer. I spotted the first wild geranium open today, but hopefully these will last longer than the other spring wildflowers.
Wild Geraniums Blooming
The full moon disappeared this evening when an eclipse occurred. The bright moon became a reddish brown dull spot in the sky among the stars during the full total lunar eclipse. Tonight is also a super moon and also called the flower moon.
Super Flower Blood Moon
It is always interesting to see the variety of colors in the backyard, not just from the wildflowers, but the rainbow of birds. The red of the cardinals, the orange of the orioles, the yellow from the goldfinch and the blue of the indigo bunting all make a colorful splash at the feeders.
Male Indigo Bunting
When driving back from town today, I noticed large patches of trilliums blooming in the ditches. The Great White Trillium are a favorite snack of deer and with my population of deer, I only found three great white trilliums blooming in my woods this afternoon. And the blossoms are about a third of the normal size as the deer have grazed them too many times which prevents the plant the ability to store energy in the roots. And it may take 10 years before the plant blossoms the first time and the deer just eats my trilliums.
Not So Great
Last night storms caused damage from wind and the heavy amount of rain. All the runoff has stirred up my pond to a brown color and the ditches looked more like big waterfalls as the water washed out culverts and roads. And while the storm caused the rainfall to seem to be bad, Bad River in Northern Wisconsin has a series of nice waterfalls including Copper Falls.
Copper Falls
