The sunshine and temperatures reaching into the seventies finally made it feel like spring. And even though I still have a small pile of snow refusing to melt, I had a mosquito trying to land on my arm today so that makes it officially spring. Plus a walk through the wood revealed two little Hepaticas just opening up so the first wildflowers confirmed spring too.
Finally Spring
The birds were singing in today’s sunshine as few butterflies floated by and this evening the pond is full of song from the spring peepers giving hope that maybe spring is finally here. And the road ditches looked a little furry too with the pussy willows blooming and their resemblance to tiny cat paws is a reminder to the new batches of kittens born this spring too.
Furry Pussy Willows
April showers are supposed to bring May flowers so with all the rain making the ground rather soggy, there should be a abundance of blossoms (if the flowers weren’t washed away yesterday).
Maybe Flowers Soon
The ground is saturated from the snow melt this week so today’s very heavy rains created sheets of water covering most of my lawn. And my poor fish probably where washed out of my pond and the ducks didn’t seem so happy either in the rain.
Waterlogged
The sunny and warm day helped to melt most of the recent snow and the water surrounded the old willow tree again but not quite as bad as the first main snow melt.
Old Willow Tree
The 15th day of April have ties to great losses like the sinking of the Titanic, President Lincoln dying, loss of money for people paying in taxes and now the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral. And while the day was the end for somethings, it was also the start for others as there was the first new calf of the season at the farm today.
New Life
The freezing temperatures overnight caused an ice layer to almost cover all of my pond. There was a small patch of open water in which I spotted a pair of Wood Ducks and Hooded Mergansers floating close together. They probably needed the bigger body mallards to break up the ice, but at least by noon, they had this bigger patch of water. At least the ice wasn’t as thick or damaging as the iceberg that the Titanic hit 107 years ago on April 14 and sank less than 3 hours later.
Freezing Over Again
The return of winter has the critters hunting harder for food again so the squirrels and chipmunks are raiding my bird feeders more than normal besides more birds.
Feeder Raider
Another day of snowfall adding to the snow pack of a foot makes it impossible to see any spring flowers if they previously had poked their noses up out of the ground. It is hard to remember it is spring when it looks like winter.
Where Have All The Flowers Gone
I don’t know where spring went since I had to walk through ten inches of snow to get to the bird feeder today. And the blowing snow, sleet, freezing rain, thunder and roaring winds did not look or feel like spring at all.
Where Did Spring Go?
