January 9th? Seriously?

This winter has been amazing for sure.  We’ve had a little snow here and there, but it hasn’t stuck around for longer than a few days each time. 

Today the afternoon temperature is approaching 45 degrees.  It looks and feels like March, and its only the middle of January.  I’m sure that we will see some colder days in the coming weeks, but I’ll take this for as long as it goes.

Here are photos of the yard, including the remains of the willow tree that we had cut down in early December. They came to do it before the ground froze completely, so we will have work to do in the spring cleaning up. I hope the ruts work themselves out some before then. I think it will be nice to have that tree gone. Beautiful and dramatic as it was, it was messy for sure.

 

And the windstorm in early September really bent many of the branches and it was feeling dangerous to walk under there. I think we’ll also appreciate the earlier light on the vegetable garden, and the tree roots won’t be sucking up all of the nutrients we put out there.

The fish in the pond mostly hang around on the bottom, but come up to look around in the heat of the day.  There are so many of them that I’m afraid the air hose we have going may not be enough to sustain them if the pond freezes over more than it has.  But so far all are well. 

The Melt begins… and ends.

I’ve been taking snapshots of our yard over the last week to document what I had hoped would be the beginning of the end for our deep snow cover.  And although it has been pretty dramatic, the snow beginning outside of my window this morning foretells a reversal of this good fortune.  Tomorrow’s post will show the results of today’s storms, but for today, the week past in pictures taken each day at about 4:30 PM, starting last Sunday.

These are views of our pond

And here the view from the deck to the willow

Another week with no rain (or very little...)

We still have been missing all of the good rainstorms here.  10 miles south they got soaked the other day.  And farther north the rain has been regular.  But the Appleton Gap has persisted, perhaps even expanded.  All of the big weather systems seem to split at about this latitude.  And we are still very dry. 

The creek is still running, and I do remember summers when it was dry by this time.  It is difficult to know if this is unusual or if dry summers are the norm for these parts.  Must consult the record, I guess.  One thing I've noticed is that there really is a "microclimate" effect.  Our yard has about a one or two week shorter growing season than the yard we had in the city.  We are low here, and we get the first and the last frosts of the season.  And there is not as much thermal mass (streets, sidewalks, roofs, etc.) to keep the heat on a close to frost night.  It's better since we have more trees.  

This week the daisies and blanket flowers are declinin g, the coneflowers are at their peak.  The hydrangeas are coming into bloom, and the hardy Hibiscus is making nice looking buds -- I hope for something spectacular in another week or so.  The Monarda are lovely, the Gooseneck Loosetrife is blooming.  The Ligularia are beginning to bloom nicely.  Dahlias all over are blooming.   The Butterfly Weed is perfect as usual, and the Joe-Pye Weed as well.  Cannas are gorgeous, though I have to water them daily and they haven't begun to flower.   Annuals are coming into full bloom and giving the yard color. 

We had the first couple of tomatoes from the garden last weekend, and we've had jalapeno  peppers for a few weeks. Raspberries are coming in strong, we've had at least a pint a day and sometimes more for the last week or so.  There is a nice looking zucchini out there, and the onions and leeks and potatoes are maturing.  We pick broccoli once or twice a week.  Summer is good.  Even though we love to ride down to the farmer's market every Saturday, there isn't much we need to buy.

Well that was then...

The rains have come.  It is green.  Still cold -- except for yesterday when it was 84 degrees for a couple of hours.  Back down to 50 today, and likely going to stay there for at least a couple of days.  But the yard is greening up beautifully, and it has been perfect weather to dig, divide and replant perennials.  This is the time to do that.  Rarely have the time, but this year I'm "retired" and have all the time in the world.  Or at least all the time I'm willing to spend.  Now that the pond has been re-established, and we've gotten the area around it back to growing condition, I have time to look other places.  I dug, divided, and moved the one remaining original clump of Karl Forster grass a couple of days ago.  One clump became five.  Could take over the yard, I suppose.  

 

The green has really taken hold now.  The lawns all around the neighborhood are solid and bright.  The only things flowering are the spring bulbs and wildflowers, and you have to look hard or have planted well to find things.  But Forsythia, Daffodils, Darwin tulips, the Bloodroot, some tree flowers have taken the place of the early pioneers as stars.  Emerging in the next week will likely be the Pasque flowers, other species tulips and probably some of the hybrids,  the Choke Cherry tree that planted itself, maybe the Serviceberry. 

I've put the Canna roots out into the greenhouse.  And also the German Ivy that has been in the kitchen windowsill all winter, but which has developed an un-curable infestation of some sort of bug.  I'm hoping the Ivy can survive the cold, but he bugs can't.  Hope I'm right.  (Though I did take a few cuttings just in case I'm wrong.)  The Elephant Ears are out there too.  A big cold blast could be a disaster, but I hope it won't happen. 

The fish are well and happy in the pond now, though two of them have not survived.  I bought new basket planters for the water lilies and will try to do some further division of them soon.  Our neighbor's pond was alive with Spring Peeper frogs last night, and I am really jealous.  We've never had frogs evident in our pond, and there were many singing last night next door.  I hope the enlargement and overwintering changes will help us there. 

Oh, and this was the week of the "Red Death" display on the roads of the flower bud scales of the maple trees.  Always a mark of Spring for me.

The Colors are Coming Back

It's amazing how red the Dogwoods are getting, and today was the first time I noticed how bright yellow the willows are becoming. There is a cold rain today, but with a couple of warmer days the green will return to the lawn I'm hoping.

The ice is completely gone from the pond, and I will begin to move the rocks and stones soon so we can dig a larger hole. Once they are gone, I can start looking for sprouts of plants around the old perimeter, and moving them to safe locations. Already up around the yard are lots of tulips, many of the daylilies are sprouting, a couple of dafodil clumps are visible, the Aliums are all up a couple of inches, many crocuses. The Pyrethrum plant under the hose reel is sprouting, and the first Winter Aconite flower is yellow and starting to emerge.

A Week of Change

It was over 50 degrees and sunny on Friday, two inches of snow fell on Saturday morning, then the temps came up again, and all the snow was gone before we were home from serving breakfast to over 400 people at Maple Syrup Saturday for Bubolz Preserve.  We put up the greenhouse on the deck, brought down the table and chairs, moved the planters back to where they belong for the summer, and were totally exhausted by about 4:30.  But then it was still nice enough and warm enough to sit out on the deck for a glass of wine and a relaxing look at the evening.  The grass is still very unstable, and I hope we didn't do too much damage to it as we walked and pushed the wheelbarrow over it. 

Over the last week I took photos each day of the progress of the melt.  It is pretty dramatic.  Though I do have to learn about staging a photo the same way repeatedly. 

Spring Signs

 

 

They are beginning to add up.

 

• The birds are noisier.
  
• The ducks are jostling for space on the creek, which is flowing.
  
• There are bare patches where old grass is showing through.
  
• Birch catkins are beginning to swell.
  
• Some of the trees are thickening with swollen buds.
  
• The light lasts longer.

There is hope. And some views I can't get enough of. (Though I do prefer some times of year over others...)

Ice is not Nice

My retirement party was Saturday evening, and my Dad and my sisters and their husbands drove to Appleton to share the lovely party with me.  The weather was mild that afternoon, but there were threats of freezing rain and I was afraid that they would have a bad drive home.  As we left the party, the parking lot was slippery and covered with ice.  Didn't look good.  The Green Bay group decided to head for home right away, and it was tough going but they made it home safely.

Nancy and David came back to our house, and we checked weat her.com and tried out the new 511 phone line for travel and road information.  It seemed as though things were likely to degenerate overnight, and so they set out for Chicago, leaving around 7:45 PM.  We heard from them around 10:00 as they were passing through Milwaukee area, and things were wet but not slippery.  They got home safely about 11:30.  

The next morning was proof of the wisdom of both groups, as we awoke to about 1/2 inch of ice covering just about everything.  It is beautiful, but persistent.  Certainly did in the skiing weekend at Bubolz. 

The tips of the Willow and the Ash trees along the creek were covered with ice at sunset on Sunday.  They were beautiful, with the half moon overhead.  And the sheen of the ice on the smooth yards full of snow is also pretty, though it does make everything harder to do.  Seems like it must be the heart of winter in Wisconsin. 

What a time to retire....

Spring in Full Swing

Last weekend the tree swallows returned again to check out the neighbor's birdhouse.  Lee and Lin had taken off the wood block covering the entrance several days ago, and no birds had been anywhere near it for some time.  But Saturday morning, suddenly as I was giving Lin some mallow clumps that I was taking out, four swallows began to fly around the house, occasionally landing on it and looking into the hole.  As soon as one of them began to settle, within seconds an English Sparrow flew in to harass him.  It came out of nowhere with no warning.  go figure.

Spring is really coming on now.  Even the Blazing Star (Liatris sp.) and the joe-pye weed (Eupatorium purpureum) are starting, finally, to sprout.  And as I walked around the yard tonight, I found things coming up that I had forgotten entirely about planting.  A bleeding heart plant that was almost a foot high, joe-pye in a place I thought had been devestated by voles, liatris in several new places. 

On the east side of the house, the ferns and lilies are coming on strong.  I have every intention of killing them off, but may wait until I have my annual plant giveaway to finalize the demolition.  The things I planted last fall are mostly coming back,  I have purchased some clematis and passion flower for the arbors.  Need to have the courage to "just say no." 

The magnolia is beginning to bloom.  Many buds seem to be frost damaged.  May be a sparse year.  But the front yard is looking very nice.  As I walked around admiring things a ruby throated hummingbird just sort of appeared at one of the pulmanaria plants under the birch trees.  As I stood there, it sipped nectar from pretty much every flower on the plant, and I was able to take many shots.  Then it flew up and landed in one of the birch trees, where I was able to get a shot of it in a still mode.  None turned out spectacular, but it was nice to have a try. 

 

 

The trilium near the sump pump outflow (my one and only) is blooming, and near it are a few of the many jack-in-the-pulpits that are coming into their own.  I found the small remains of the marsh marigold I planted years ago barely showing along the creek.  I doubt if it will bloom this year, but there is still hope. 

 

 

 

 

I have some favorite shots of the yard, that I take over and over as the light and the plants change.  The Willow is the subject of many of them.  Just something you gotta love about that tree.  

What a Difference a Week Makes

A week ago, we had deep snow throughout the yard, and I was brushing snow off of the evergreens so their branches wouldn't break. Today, it has been above freezing since yesterday morning, and the grass is starting to show through in many places. Temps are likely to be over 40 for the next several days, and we may lose all of the snowcover.

As snow melts, things are uncovered that went unnoticed under the white blanket. Many mouse or vole runs are evident, which means that the grass will be torn up when it is revealed.

I love the big weeping willow in the southeast corner of the yard, but this shot shows one of the biggest downsides of willows: they drop branches and twigs constantly. We picked up a big pile of them right before the first snow, but there will be plenty in the spring.

And some plants seem not to understand that the January thaw is not the spring. The New England Aster plant under the bedroom window is already sending out new shoots. The warm weather is nice, and I do like to see what is going on. But I hope for more snow to cover all this up for awhile again. It's too soon to start cleaning up, and the snow offers protection from the inevitable cold nights still to come.