Springy Monday

March 27, 2017

Double-click on any image to view it full size.  Click the back-button to return to your place on this page.

 

Greetings!

According to the calendar spring has arrived, but, with the exception of this past Saturday, the weather does not yet fully agree.  Nevertheless, this set of pictures celebrates the season, using images from previous years.

#1 is a reminder of what we have been looking at until just a couple of days ago – indeed odd piles of snow can still be found wherever the plows created heaps during the last snowfall.

But, happily, views like #2 are becoming more common, and in the sunniest spots the daffodils are almost over.  I like this picture, even though the daffodils were almost certainly planted in the hollow of the tree stump deliberately, because it represents life coming out of death – as in spring coming after the winter.

In addition to the showy daffodils, #2 includes some of our tiny wild flowers, and #3 gives pride of place to some of those, known, I believe, as Spring Beauties.

#4 features a clump of flowering Forsythia growing amongst the bare rocks in Great Falls Park.

#5 is a close-up of Eastern Redbud growing amidst Spanish Moss at Airlie Gardens, in Wilmington, NC.

#6 shows it here at Lansdowne Woods, with Wisteria in the background,

and #7, also on the property here, reminds us that bumble bees and other pollinating insects will soon be back en masse.  (On Saturday I saw my first butterfly of the year.)

I am not sure if #8 is a Dogwood or not, but the flowers below it are certainly Tulips!

The recent snow and hard frosts wiped out much of this year’s Cherry blossom spectacular in DC (not to mention many of the area’s Bradford Pears).  The surviving Cherry trees around the Tidal Basin reached their peak on Saturday.  Picture #9 is a salute to those survivors.

It remains to be seen how badly that late storm has damaged the trees themselves.  The final picture in this set, #10, is neither a Cherry nor  Bradford Pear – I don’t know what it is – but I will borrow a caption I saw for another photograph (and indirectly from the famous advertisement) and say “This Bud’s for you!”

Have a great week!