Rites of Spring

Weather: Rain Thursday night, with only a few bouts of high winds.

Last useful rain: 3/21. Week’s low: 28 degrees F. Week’s high: 64 degrees F in the shade.

What’s blooming: Apricots, tansy mustard

What’s reviving/coming up in the area: Globe willows, Japanese honeysuckle

What’s reviving/coming up beyond the walls and fences: Shoulders were green before the rain last week, probably tansy mustard and cheat grass; alfalfa, western stickseed, stickleaf, broom snakeweed, goat’s beard, and purple asters are up in my yard.

What’s reviving/coming up in my yard: Roses beginning to leaf, potentillas, tulips, daffodils, daylilies, bouncing Bess, Maltese cross, chrysanthemums, coreopsis, tansy, white yarrow, Shasta daisies

Tasks: It’s ditch cleanup time; one burned the banks of his ditch, another group were in their bank clearing debris yesterday.

Animal sightings: Quail, chickadees, small bees around apricots, small black ants

Weekly update: It’s been a disconcertingly normal winter and spring. While it got colder than usual in December, there was snow on the ground that lingered until temperatures warmed a little in January. The ground was saturated while the snow melted and the lower layers were still frozen, but that problem passed by the time we had more snow and rain. The winds have only been high a few times.

Last week the chickadees returned. One was keeping watch while the others moved into my neighbor’s metal building. It compensated for the lost black locust by perching on the highest branch on one of the remaining Siberian peas.

I heard the sounds of geese a couple weeks ago, then saw the flock back in the yard of near the river. This time a white chicken was with them.

The quail also have returned. One was perched on the utility wire on Thursday.

Plants have been emerging in the same places in the same order as previous years. The globe willows began to show a haze a couple weeks ago, and the color has gotten brighter and more uniform since on area trees. My tree is always slower. The bright chartreuse leaves are still laying prone along the branches.

The plants that invade other beds are all back before their prey: the golden spur columbine, winecup mallow, garlic chives, purple asters, dandelions, alfalfa, and Queen Anne’s lace. They actually appear before the more traditional weeds. Even before I can think about seeds, I’ve been out with a spade and trowel digging out unwanted volunteers.

The first flowers of the year are opening, the tansy mustard and the apricots. Nothing kills the mustard, but as soon as the apricots appear one begins to wonder when the next frost will come, and if the white flowers again will be sacrificed to the weather.

Will the year continue to be normal, or will this be of those rare seasons when the trees bear fruit? At least the bees have returned and are doing their part.

Notes on photographs: All take 3/24/19.
1. Daylilies (Hemerocallis fulva) sprouting from last year’s dead matter.
2. Bearded Dutch iris (Iris germanica) emerging.
3. Apricot (Prunus armeniaca) blooming near a one-seeded juniper (Juniperus Monosperma).