Sunday, April 2, 2017

SPRING VARIATIONS

      Spring is a time of many variations that pull us up and down. There are nice times when our spirits soar and there wild times when we are saddened once again . We are looking for spring...actually summer. We are hoping. Setbacks drive us to nuts.

      So today our weather was very dull. We had heavy dark clouds but no rain or snow. Our temperature was around  5 C(40 F) all day. It was windy and looked very unpleasant. When I went out it felt much better than it looked.

     A few days ago we had clear skies and 10 C  (50 F). People brought out the shorts.

     So spring brings a wide variation in our daily weather. A cold front is coming in tonight and we may get some drizzle and snow.

     The snow has disappeared except for the dirty remains of snow banks that are in shaded areas.

     The grass is brown but if you look in sunny locations you can find some new grass shoots. Our grass slowly loses its color over the winter and in the spring is brown. It takes a while for things to turn green. I have bluebells along the east side of my house. Since bluebells are early they are about 2 -3 Cm (1 in) tall.

    Most days we have new birds that arrive from the south. We've seen Blue birds, Trumpeter swans, gulls and a few ducks. From now on there will be a steady stream of arrivals. I took my bird group out yesterday morning to  small area and we found 13 species of birds.

    I'm also running a little project called Bird Species 150 which to find 150 bird species  to celebrate Canada's 150th birthday. So bird reports are coming in steadily Check RDRN.ca and see what species have been reported.

   And my bunny had a snooze in my back yard today and he/she is starting to turn brown. Richardson ground squirrels have come out of hibernation. The old males come out first and later on the young males and females. The old males return to hibernation in July again.


     So slowly but surely spring is coming to Hiawatha House.

     I've had some new visitors recently and some made comments. Thanks for visiting Hiawatha House and thanks for the comments. Maybe we'll have a conversation.