Out and About in the Early Spring

My dear BH always says that in Virginia the first day of spring is really March 1 and while I am a little pickier about the angle of the sun, this year the temperatures are on his side. So many warm days, so few cold ones, have pushed the trees into overdrive. Not only were the daffodils blooming in February, the forest line turning rosy, but look at this poplar tree caught turning green on Sunday March the 10! 

This is my harbinger tree - the one I always gauge when 'real' spring has arrived. When it leafs out, it's officially springtime. 

There's still plenty of spring to come, of course. There are even oak and beech trees that have to shed their leaves to make room for the new ones. But green is pushing it's fingers along the edges of the roads, the misty tops of the garden. 

Saturday, we all went strolling around the farm, assessing things, admiring the work of Mark the logger, who dragged the hurricane downed trees out of the fields, preparatory to hauling them away. I'll be glad to see them go - the hole they leave in the woods is bad enough, but looking at their skeletal waste as they rot away against the edge of the woods is just awful. We already cut 5 cords of firewood out of them - glad to see these go.  

Of course, not before everyone gets the chance to climb all over them. 

Sunday I took the dogs on a late afternoon stroll and was surprised to see so many peach trees blooming! These are little spreaders, not trees I've planted. I guess the squirrels take them off and plant them, because I have dozens of these all around the house. They produce little tiny peaches, usually not very sweet - just the thing for hungry critters. And masses of beautiful pink blossoms.

And now, with with Mercury retrograde this northern spring 2012, from March 12 to April 5, let us all ask the spirits to look after our cars, our computers, our pens and our mouths, and anything else that could move us from one place to another. Happy Monday.

What's with Spring?

Well into April we're still having cold days and high winds, punctuated with random moments of hot humidity. We have a fire in the stove and yet the weather dot com guys promise a high of 90 on Monday. 90! Ugh. I resent that temperature in the summertime.

This hasn't seemed to bother the intrepid ones - like my flowering crab apple - who only flowers in the years when Mercury is in retrograde ... oh don't get me started on that! ... This year my pretty tree, surrounded by periwinkle and deadfall, has thrown out thousands of cherry red blossoms. I'm still moving daffodils, though not with great diligence, from the old garden to the lane. There are iris I want to save and a few peonies, maybe one or two other things - and I need to take clippers into the shrubbery and attack those wicked honeysuckle vines at their stems. I see it will be a long springtime chore - but it is possible there will still be some good tomato plants left at the garden centers by the time I have tilled up the soil. If I could have fresh tomatoes and basil this summer I would count myself rich.

I've been fiddling with the What's the Point mitts - yes there will be enough yarn to make them - and trying to figure out how to make the opening for the thumbs in this complex 15 stitch rib. I tried knitting in the round, but couldn't figure out where thumb the breaks should be. I tried knitting it flat, with the intention of seaming up the sides, but ended up with the swooping purl triangle being slashed in half. This morning, as I prepared my early morning pot of chocolate flavored coffee, I had a breakthrough! I've been trying to use this wide rib for the whole of the mitt - when really the only place it matters -or even shows - is across the back of the hand. I can center that lovely rib panel on my middle finger and switch to something plainer for the sides (including thumb openings) and palm! duh. I still want a rib, but I'll play around with 1x1, 2x2, 5x2 or even a combination of them all.

I ought to have a photo by tomorrow.

Yea Saturday!

A Turtle Spring day

Around here, as soon as the sun comes out and the temperatures get into the high 50's or 60's, these guys come out to sun themselves. More than a blossom, an unfurling green leaf or even fragrant breeze, sunning turtles on damp swampy logs are proof that winter is on its way out. 

I've been looking out for them for a few days but even though we've had warm weather, it's been overcast. No solar heat in a cloudy sky - and it's those extra powerful sunbeams that will tempt a turtle. Tuesday was one of those days. It wasn't even all that warm and the breeze was brisk, but down here in the dip, along Farmer's Hall Creek, you can duck out of the wind and get a sense of the greening of the earth. 

Turtles, like all the rest of the wild kingdom, are notoriously camera shy. So long as I am whizzing by in the car, they'll lay still on their logs, considering me nothing but white noise. But if I even slow down, they'll lift their heads. If I roll the window down, I imagine their soft little shoulders stiffening beneath their shells. 

I don't often get such good pictures of them, they can slip off a log in the blink of an eye - and I don't really like to disturb them when they're warming up after the long cold winter. This bit of swamp was frozen for almost 3 months. But I did get lucky - have a peek at the guy on the right - see how his tail is reflected in the water so that it looks really long?

And the fella in the center of this photo .... Yertle the Turtle?