I really shouldn’t be allowed out in public

The lilacs continue to open up, slowly by slowly… (Syringa vulgaris)

I think you’re supposed to be on the inside of the flower.

Vlad the Impaler, reincarnated as a daffodil.

Our lone miniature hyacinth, April 14th, and today, respectively. Baby’s getting big!

Little clusters of what might be blue-eyed grass continue to pop up here and there.

I want to BE that color.

Now this bug knows what he’s doing. Spring beauty (Claytonia virginica).

These little buggers haven’t opened up yet, so I’m still clueless. Whatever they are, there are a lot more of them today than there were a few days ago.

As well as a whole army of trout lily leaves, which somebody seems to have been munching on:

That’s another spring beauty in there.

Also still a mystery: these super-fuzzy guys, that create little white flowers.

No news on the magnolia front.

I went up into the woods and Charlie followed me. Since we’ve got evil monsters in the woods, and I didn’t want Charlie to get used to the idea of hanging out up here, I carried him inside and then headed back out again.

I found a new cache of white blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium albidum) on the west side of the house.

After all of these forays, I went for my run, which was inexplicably much faster than my run of two days ago. On my way out, I stopped to chat with our neighbor, who was busy grading the private road we share (“hooray!”, says the trusty Honda!). He said the trapper walked the land and estimates there are nine, count ‘em nine, beavers working the pond and stream. He’ll trap some but not all of them – the goal is to have enough beavers around to maintain the dam that forms the pond, but not enough to wreak havoc on the field.

On my way back from my run, I saw something so splendid that I ran inside to get the camera. We maintain a largely shoes-off household, so I took off my running shoes, and on my way back out, naturally, I opted for the easiest footwear possible:

Am I a hottie, or what? What on earth could possibly be worth going out in public looking like this?

The first fern fronds of the season, that’s what!