Other firsts for the season

Asparagus spears

Mourning cloak butterfly

Peony leaves

Garden chaff collection

Allergy symptoms devolving into a chest cold

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Spring Things

Spring Singer alerted me to the emergence of this year’s first crop of jousting carpenter bees [Xylocopus] in regional gardens.  This afternoon they are bumbling in and around the magnolia blossoms and riding the willow catkins, which bow under their weight in the March breezes.

At least, around here, at the moment, those are ‘breezes’.  I understand Colorado got a blizzard, and sections of the Northeast got a recent blast of snow.

Big bees, little bees; it’s been a good day for watching wildlife in the warming weather.  A wood thrush poked around in the leaf litter by the back fence.  White throated sparrows haven’t disappeared yet, and the downy woodpeckers are tap tap tapping to see what might be waking up under loose bark.  Cardinals, blue jays, song sparrows…. Squirrels, rabbits, and oh, I hope that was something other than a rat — aren’t those supposed to be nocturnal?  Couldn’t it be a stoat, or something more pleasant, with a brown agouti coat and bright black eyes?

We’ll see.

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This week in typewriter abuse

Let’s not tell Smiling Typewriter about this…..

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First bees of spring!!

I’ll have to add the photo of the actual live bee when I edit the camera shots, but in the meantime, here is a stonework skep on a nearby building.

  

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