Saturday, March 7, 2009

March in a Minute

In like a lion, indeed. We got whomped on Monday with a foot of snow, but not enough to close the library and let us stay home baking. Le sigh. We were working the night shift, giving us plenty of time in the morning to shovel (okay, Kenny did all the shoveling) and I had time to shake off the trees.
Then, out like a lamb, as that snow will all be a memory by tomorrow, it seems. The mercury's at 56 now and the sun is shining on the salty-dirt-encrusted cars, the wet leftover autumn leaves, the damp, brown and broken seedheads, grass stalks and...hey! can I get a little more of that clean, pretty snow? This all looks like nothin' but yardwork to me! Wait a minute, there's gotta be a little spring somewhere...Aha!
Here we go, the first crocus of the year, complete with a little piece of the bark mulch it pushed through:
And it wasn't alone: The tulips are pushing through: And from underneath the snowvalanche the mantis egg case emerged, bowed but unbroken and still firmly attached to the juniper. Also on view, this psychedelic sedum, which turned crazy colors last November and stayed that way all winter: Of course, this is only a false start; spring isn't official for two weeks, and even then, we know better than to put away the shovels before the end of April. Is there a name for this kind of respite, which, at the other end of the year, would be an Indian-summer day?

2 comments:

Clytie said...

In like a lion indeed! Wonderful pictures ... I especially love the one of the emerging tulips, which remind me of a group of marching penguins.

Clytie said...

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