the unfolding of spring: blink, and you’ll miss it.

I don’t know about you, but my brain melts at temperatures above 80 degrees. It’s Vermont. It’s March. Good Lord. The process of documenting spring’s awakening is UPON US, baby. The frogs started hollering yesterday afternoon. All kinds of things are happening-all-of-the-sudden, and here I am, with a melted brain. Here’s what I was able to capture today:

The lilac buds started opening. Today. Last year, the buds were closed on April 6th, and it took them until April 22nd to get to the stage shown above. This year, they went from closed, to open, in two days.

The lone miniature lawn hyacinth poked up.

So did these guys. I never did really ID ‘em last year – I think I went with white blue-eyed grass.
Here’s one of my world-famous time-lapse sequences of buds opening up. I believe this is an introduced species – Cornus mas, or a cherry dogwood.

The terminal bud.

The next set of buds. No news.

The next set of buds…hello!

…the next set of buds…

An explosion of yellow. I swear, I’m going to have to just camp out next to this and try and spot how this happens. Sproinnnggggg!

Ta da!


Along the driveway, the wild rose is leafing out today. Last year? Late April.
As for the gray birch – already, the buds are sporting their magenta headdresses while nearby, the catkins open up. This is a process that started last year on April 11th. So yeah, it’s been an accelerated spring.



I’ve got my work cut out for me, to run around and keep up with all of this – wish me luck!