Sunday, February 21, 2016

What a tease



          Yesterday’s temperature was cruising at a giddy 60 degrees, so we extracted ourselves from our recliners and laced up our walkin’ shoes.
In my heart I know that it’s still February, and our slice of the country has been treated to April snowstorms on occasion, but still it’s hard not to get your hopes up when you see signs of spring like these:



A woolly bear caterpillar shuffled across our path. I hope he makes it to a good spot for his spring transformation into a moth, although he’s much cuter in this state than after he turns into another annoying dull brown insect. With a name like that you can't help but smile, and then he's got all that endearing black and brown fuzziness going on. 





Several of our neighbors have tapped into the change of temperature. Why go to the store when you can produce your own maple syrup from that tree sitting in the front yard? So what if it takes 35 gallons of sap to produce 1 gallon of syrup.



But our iris are going to be sadly disappointed when next week’s snow showers arrive. I’ll have to keep an eye on the forsythia – it’s even more easily confused. 

13 comments:

  1. Enjoy the warm up, who knows what's next.

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  2. It's going to be an early spring! I think your post is wonderful! Let's hope those iris figure it out! :-)

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  3. I always worry about the little buds and insects and things that come out before the last of the snow is past. I don't know why -- it's nature, and they've all been doing it for tens of thousands of years!

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  4. I have garden beds of soon to be disappointed bulbs, too. Strange winter.

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  5. Iris are just peaking up here and daffys are just showing green noses. But today almost hit 60, so I did some gardening.

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  6. Ah spring. Such an exciting, fast moving time of year...

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  7. The best thing about this is that you got out for a walk when it was nice. Iris will be fine. Mine get covered with snow every year,

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  8. it's hard for me to read you being enthusiastic about a woolly bear caterpillar. We get them in plague proportions and they can chop through an entire garden in a night.The fuzzy coats are kind of cute though.
    Hope your Forsythia survives.

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    1. Good point. I still remember the years we were wrapping masking tape, then Vaseline, around our trees to keep the legions of caterpillars from climbing them. They hung from the branches like Spanish moss. Very icky.

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  9. We were out in Spring temperatures as well yesterday. My youngest wouldn't believe it was still Winter.

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  10. It's definitely spring here February or not. the maple tree is blooming, the red buds are blooming or coming out. it's been in the 70s the past few days.

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  11. Our flowering quince was in full bloom, I believe in December! So I know it is totally confused. I love those Wooly worms but we see them in the fall. Aren't their colors supposed to predict the kind of winter weather that is ahead? Maybe they are confused too.

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    1. That's what I thought, too, but I looked them up, and logically enough, Professor Google pointed out that they need to wake up in the Spring to become moths.

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