Everything is affected by everything else.
How different this spring has been. With hardly any snow and much milder temperatures, the bears awoke on March 16th this year, contrasting with April 28th, an extraordinarily cold last year. My indicators are my bird seed feeders, which get ripped off and flung about when the hungry bears awaken. What better appetizer than handy trail mix, black oil sunflower seeds?
The geese started honking and streaming overhead in a graceful northward formation on February 29th.
The wild turkey clan took a stroll around the back of our property, near the stream, on March 23rd. Last summer the family of seven were almost a daily part of the landscape, pecking around the periphery of the property.
The wasps have awakened. I saw the first ones on March 24th. We live in peace. I don’t bother them and they don’t bother me. We’re cool.
April has seen a slow yet persistent awakening, the weather more March-like, as March was more April-like weatherwise.
Our lawns are a tapestry of colors now at the end of April. Voilets, from deep purple to pale lavender and every hue in-between, grace the ground, little white wild strawberry flowers have started, purple heal-all, a/k/a creeping jenny with its tiny lavender orchid like flowers, purple myrtle and dandelions glisten with millions of tiny rainbows from the early morning touch of the sun as the early bumblebees hungrily buzz from flower to flower.
Viburnums are in early flowering while the sweet smelling plum blossoms are fading and the forsythia just starting to emerge. It truly amazes me how life bursts forth from seemingly dead plants. It is such a great awakening time, the energy of life rising from the deep sleep of renewal.
I can still see the mountains all around me as the trees are in bursting bud mode, soon to leaf out becoming the glory of our vista, mountains disappearing just like that.