The First Big Melt

Harrison has found a sunny spot to survey the house from the top of the stairs.

Well, Spring is here!


Psych.


Michigan loves to do this to us mid-winter. We'll be trudging along, perfectly miserable through the last several weeks of winter and Michigan, like a flare of hope spotted in the sky, gifts us a quick thaw to help us get through. As I write, it is a perfect 45º outside and the sun is making quick work of the snow-upon-snow-upon-snow that blankets the world.

The icicles hang heavily all along our house (lack of gutters will do that) and every once in a while we all -jump- out of our skin as a loud crash announces the demise of nature's latest icy architecture. It's nice to sit in a comfy chair on our heavily-windowed front porch and watch the birds courting each other as they flit about screeching something terrible. It's so nice, in fact, that I can nearly convince myself that this is it: The Big Melt. This is what I've been waiting for for months. Of course, despite what you may think and despite my hopeless romantic status, I am smarter than that. Give it another week and we'll be trudging through fresh snow, cursing the wind with lips chapped anew.

I plodded through the sloshy snow down to the gardens at the bottom of the yard by the windbreak to take a few photos this morning. Most of the cone flowers and sunflowers and various other bird-friendly plans have been picked to bits by the finches by now. I've been careful to keep the birds fed at the feeders since they've been so kind as to stick around through the winter so far. It's important this time of year to provide them with food if they're still in the area.

In addition to picking over the perennial beds, the birds have eaten nearly all of the wild rose hips from the orchard. It took me a few stops at multiple rose bushes before I could find an untouched cluster of rose hips. You can see the winter has taken it's toll on the roses as well. The hips are nearly freeze-dried, like rose hip raisins.

The one thing that these winter warm-ups do provide us with are some seriously stellar sunsets (yeah alliteration!) The sunsets have been fantastic the past three evenings, and I've been fortunate to watch them all from our west-facing front porch. It will be a bummer when Michigan decides to freeze over again, but at least we have this little glimpse of spring to know it really is on the way.



------


One final update in case you missed my edit on the January craft swap post: I have finally photographed the wonderful garden apron that my mother made for me. It has so many pockets, and even three loops for tools, and two slots for pencils! It's very durable and I'm sure it'll hold up to my crazy gardening adventures.

Thanks Mom!