Spring! ...it's in the air!

 Photo: April 2016

 From 2016... 

I can feel Spring peeking out from all the stale corners of winter. It isn't really visible yet around here, but it's in the air. I can just feel it.

Suddenly the kids are out riding bikes through the mud and playing in half-frozen slush puddles. We're stopping at the playground on our way home from school to play for just a few minutes because the temperature is above 35.

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I started writing that post a month ago on March 10th. It's now April 6th and a lot has changed in one month. The grass is green, but our nights are still freezing. The tips of the lilacs and apple trees are covered with green leaf buds.

Photo: April 2016

March 21, 2017:

Today is the first day of Spring. The snow is all gone and we have a lot of mud. It's still freezing at night, but up to 40 or 50 during the day.

I've snipped little branches from my flowering crab-apple trees, flowering almond, and apple trees and brought them into the house and into vases of water to force the blooms. This is one of my favorite ways to bring spring a little early! I love having the beautiful blooms in the house before anything is blooming outside yet. I snipped them a week and a half ago, and the buds are just starting to open on the ends of the branches, showing soft little furry nubs of new life. Within a few days, I expect to see leaves unfurling and blossoms emerging. Now it is time to go out and snip some more, so that when the ones I have start to wither and wilt, I have another batch ready to begin unfurling. This time, I will snip some wild plum, some apricot, cherry, and more flowering almond. It helps to extend the bloom time for me if I bring some in the house, and place some in the sunny windows of the warm-ish (50-60 degrees garage. Then I can bring a few more branches in from the garage every few days. If I can keep this up, I will have ongoing blooms in the house right up until everything outside is green and lush and blooming!

 Photo: May 2016

Photo: May 2016