Suddenly Everything is Green, Even the Driveway!

This week is redbud week, crabapple week, and lilac week. It is also a preview of next week, which will be dogwood week and azalea week. Norm said he even saw an iris in bloom up the street this morning while walking Ava.

It feels like most of the flowering bushes and trees are about a week early. Even though the winter seemed cold and unending I guess it wasn't that cold over all. And when it warmed up, it went from the 40s to the 80s in about a week, and it has stayed there. We are supposed to get a cool down this weekend, but only to the upper 60s and still no night freezes. I think it might be safe to move the geraniums outside.

We have been pleasantly surprised that our "color magic" tulips we bought a few years ago have continued to bloom each year. Usually tulips just fade away after a couple of seasons, unless they are known to be "perennial" tulips. I saw some in the Breck's catalog today and may order more to plant next fall.

The big story here is the POLLEN. Those tracks you see in the driveway aren't in the dust; that is pollen out there. Most is from our 85-year old oak tree but almost all the trees bloomed at once this year. The oak is a little early, too. The squirrels don't mind; they have been digging in all the flower pots looking for acorns and the tree can't produce soon enough to suit them.
Miraculously, neither of our allergies have kicked in yet. Usually the pines (not yet producing) or the locust trees get me--the latter almost always bloom the first weekend of May, but they will probably be early, too.

Today Norm was able to get back to our water exercise class, and he has been busy taking Ava out on walks, too. Suddenly everything is getting dry and he has been stringing soaker hoses. We hope to see our repaired lawnmower return home from the shop by this Friday; the clumps of grass are getting kind of high out back. Yesterday we had something of an adventure when Norm discovered what appeared to be a young opossum lodged in a neighbor's trash can. We tipped the can and left it where the critter could crawl out at nightfall, which apparently it did. We seem to have seen a lot of wildlife around here over the years..a fox, hawk in the garage, turkey in the yard, and now opossums two years in a row, in addition to moles, voles, rabbits, squirrels and tons of birds, including some very noisy grackles with fledglings where we hear them squawk for more food all day.