Friday, March 6, 2009

A Mini Spring Break

Magnifying Spring

Late February gave me a bad case of the winter blues, along with the flu and bronchitis, but nature gave me a little bit of a remedy for my ills today. Not much sun, but the weather was warm enough for a walk with my son to find some signs of spring life. And we discovered quite a bit!

Holey Woodpecker Tree, Batman!

The first thing we noticed was that the woodpeckers must have been very busy working on this tree all winter long. It had about eight holes pecked all around it.

Teddy the Tree Man

Doesn't the tree look like one of the Ents from Lord of the Rings?

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Here are the first spring flowers that I've noticed, and we saw several clumps of them in all stages of emerging from the ground.

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And our first mushroom sightings of the year--these were growing quite happily on a large tree stump.

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Neighborhood Deer

We also had a close sighting of five of our neighborhood deer. (You may be able to see that one has been tagged.) Our village has formed a committee to determine how the deer population can be controlled in our largely suburban neighborhood. I kind of like them, but I know that the avid gardeners in our neighborhood think that they are a great nuisance.

Bud Silhouettes

I noticed a very elegant tree with almond-shaped buds on the tips of its branches. It will be fun to track its progress on my morning walks as spring progresses.

4 comments:

Margie Oomen said...

What a breath of fresh air this post it. Just what the doctor ordered for herself. I can't believe you have flowers already. I had better get outside and search for some :)

Lisa said...

Lovely photos! Spring is definitely in the air!

Linda Summerfield said...

How wonderful that you found a beautiful little flower.

Anonymous said...

I just can not get over our mutual love of nature and being out in it. I'm realizing that I have to notice or things in nature come and go so quickly I miss them, like buds transforming into blooms!