yowza. bloodroot, frog song, TRILLIUM…

This is from a walk in the woods in town, not where we live. Tis bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis)! Check out those leaves. So very modest. Don’t look! Don’t look!

Back at home, I visited the lone hyacinth, last seen here on March 22nd. It’s opened up a bit, eh?

The lawn is dotted with eastern blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium atlanticum).

Let the records show that our feral forsythia has finally started in – earlier than last year, to be sure, but later than the highly southern latitudes just a couple of miles from here.
When you’re lying in the leaf litter taking pictures, sometimes you come across unexpected riches, like…

…a whole stash of bonus hyacinth in the beginnings of the woods.
Have you ever wondered just exactly what an almost-open daffodil looks like? I know I have.

Not Yet.

Alllmost…

Check this out, it can’t decide if it’s white, or yellow. Sweet.
We’ve got some coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) – normally our very first wildflower, but this crazy spring, it’s scrambling to keep its place in the line-up.

 Click here to see what it looks like when it goes to seed.
Hold on to your hats, the willow (species unknown) out by the mailbox is simply crazy.
This is soooo weird, because these guys didn’t get going until a MONTH from now last year, when other things were up and running that so far I’ve seen no sign of.
And now, for the audio portion. I visited the wetland across the way. Want to hear the quintessential sound of Vermont spring? (Hint: if you are not from around here, the correct answer is “yes”.)


I admit, I got distracted by the end by a tadpole, which I didn’t capture in the video. But here’s a tadpole for you:

And-and-and I spotted something green amidst the clutter of leaf litter and and and it’s TRILLIUM.

Stay tuned on this puppy, it’ll be glorious. (Trillium erectum.)

photos of angels, birch seeds, hemlock cones

It was a gorgeous day, in both a thoroughly enjoyable yet disorientingly disturbing way.
We begin with Miss Lady, in a rare moment of sitting still enough for a portrait.

The light blobs: I’m sure there is a scientific reason for the phenomenon that occurs when I shoot into the sun, but can we all agree that they’re Maggie’s angels?

The obsession with yellow birch seeds continues. Here we see that the trident-shaped thingies are attached to the heart-shaped seeds. But what I love about this is the two aren’t joined together the way I thought they were. I thought the heart shapes would sit directly on top of the tridents. Apparently not. All I can see is that this is a section of a catkin that’s falling apart. I need to find a catkin that hasn’t completely blown up. Probably too late for this year.
Have I mentioned that the beaver pond’s main dam is gone? They’ve built another, closer to the road. Here’s the currently-drained part.

Not shown: the feral bathtub that lives at the edge of the pond, plotting revenge against whoever dumped it into the burn pile.
As promised, hemlock cones.

(Blurry, sorry.)

And upside-down, for the view. These are tiny. (Relative to your Typical Pine Cone.) Easily less than an inch long.


Forsythia blooming on December 3rd. See what I mean about the gorgeous weather? It’s confusing everyone. Now is the time to shut down and get some rest for the year – not pump out flowers. Go to sleep, sweet forsythia! It’s bedtime!
Speaking of bedtime, ‘tis mine. Good night!

sparrowcide, wild ginger, fruiting moss, and pie

An old friend came to visit for the day. Since she’s moving to Wisconsin in a couple or three months, we have a limited number of playdates. On this one, we went for a stroll and got caught up on life, the universe, and everything.

An advantage of spending time with other people is that you realize that your own perspective is just that: your own wee little world view – not the only game in town. Would I have thought to take this shot if it hadn’t been for Kristin? Nope.

You know me. Give me the close-ups.

This opening-up-of-the-magnolia-bud is new since yesterday.

You can’t turn your back for a minute around here – everything’s popping open.

Like the wild ginger (Asarum canadense). Yes, that’s a flower. It looks more like a tiny insectivorous monster (“Seymour…feed me…”), but I’m not sure that it is. I think it’s just…a funny looking flower.

More ginger. Boatloads of these this year.

Oh hey, we apparently have a forsythia bush halfway in the woods. Who knew?

I know, I’m obsessed with the gray birch (Betula populifolia) buds with their little headdresses – well today is the first day that it looks like there’s more coming out of that bud. I think those are leaves on either side…?

The blue cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides) from yesterday – some of the flowers are opening up – this was the one non-blurry shot I got.

But even the blurry ones are kinda cool.

Eventually, Kristin and I got as far as the cemetery a quarter mile away. I got obsessed with a massive tree trunk in the middle of the cemetery:

Like Devil’s Tower, Wyoming, in profile.

And then I got obsessed with chisel marks on the backs of ancient marble headstones:

In other news, this happened today. Strawberry rhubarb pie. Think I’m gonna go see how it turned out.

Oh, about the sparrowcide?

Sigh. Time to bell the cat.