My alder catkins are early this year - creating a welcome hazy reddish-pink in the distance. I also have winter blooming jasmine that is jolly but scentless. No crocus yet, although they will likely be my next arrivals. The days are getting longer and spirits are lifting accordingly.

The days really are getting longer aren't they?
I start getting excited for spring 2 months early EVERY year and then get shocked by the March-April snow fall….. I feel like Charlie Brown lining up one more time to kick that football!

I am always surprised when our local school district burns their remaining snow days by extending the Presidents Day holiday, only to have it snow in March. Will they never learn?? But, gotta love those clear wintry days like today when one can putter around with pruners and dream of spring.

Note to self: keep a close eye on men with loppers -- while we were pruning our fruit trees, my husband went after all the plum seedlings that pop up here and there, quickly becoming a forest of young whips. Among them, I have/had a lovely winter jasmine just starting to bloom (reference photo in first post). You guessed it, this plant got a serious pruning and is now about half its normal size with many of the stalks cut down to ground level. One would think the bright yellow blooms would have been a clue...but, ah well...it will recover.

We are dangerous and not very discriminating.

A "professional" was in my yard doing some cleanup work while we discussed his coming back another time to do some "professional" pruning.

I had had an ancient rhodie that had had died back to mostly dead wood plus one green twig emerging FROM the seemingly dead trunk. Admittedly, the dead trunk stuck up to eye level, and he WAS cleaning up the yard.

I was leading him towards it while saying "this is the one I would MOST like to save, if you can cut off the dead wood at top while leaving the one grren twig to grow back ..."

As I was saying "I would MOST like to save ...", he interrupted me saying "for example i can break this off" while he twisted the whole rotten trunk, breaking it at ground level (and I'm 99% sure, killing that old rhododendron ex-tree completely).

So it was easy not to hire him again. He made it even easier by trying to increase the price of a job by 50% after agreeing to it and finishing the job while I was away from home (after agreeing to do it while I was there to watch). He claimed that the dump fees were 3-4 times greater than he expected (as a "professional" who dumped there at least 5 times per week),

But I had checked ahead of time, and knew exactly what the fees were.

Anyway, he killed my ancient Rhodie and lied like a rug. When I lived on Cape Cod, we called that being a "Cape Cod Craftsman", but I see you can find it anywhere if you look like a sucker

You're going to have your hands full following Gary around when he retires, between the loppers, chainsaw, and Kubota! We're having lovely sunny weather over here, but dreams of spring are a bit premature yet. We did finally get 2 inches of snow the other night - bringing our grand total up to 2 1/2 inches! I've never seen anything like this since we've lived here and am getting a little worried about drought this summer. I went to Wenatchee yesterday and it was almost 50º in the afternoon!

I've been a bit worried about drought all winter. Nice to see it raining this week-end even though I had planned on moving a couple of blueberry bushes. I have never had to top off my cement fish pond in the fall/winter months. Did it twice since September. The hellebores have popped out of the ground, but no opened flowers yet.

Our back creek and pond area is flooded. Again. One of these years we will address this perpetual problem. We keep saying 'next fall' when things are dried out, but then it is well behaved and doesn't seem as important.

"The roof don't leak when it don't rain.
When it's raining, I cain't fix it nohow."

Deb, I am impressed that you had a variety of jasmine blooming so early. Maybe it is time for me to cut some forsythia branches and see if the buds will open up inside.

My first flowers for the season. I pruned my heathers back severely last fall so was surprised that I hadn't cut all the winter blooms off


It was a surprise to see the first hellebore in bloom in the shadiest part of the woodland area.


Am a little worried about my beloved mossy patio. Had the moss scraped last summer because it had gotten deep enough to encourage grass. Doesn't look like much was done to it. The joys of living so close to a rainforest.

I love your mossy patio. I also allow our native moss to pretty much grow where it wants, it is easy enough to strip it off if it starts to over-engulf other plants and I like the springy softness. This piece of burnt wood becomes a centerpiece in the winter, then gets pretty much over-shadowed by flowers during the spring/summer. I'm always pleased at the numerous different varieties of moss that grow on it, none planted all volunteers:



And, here's my daily visitor down at our pond. There is apparently some sort of salmon spawning which brings in the eagles. My dog Frankie also found some dead fish to roll in (peee-yooo).

Nadina has lots of color
Witch Hazel smells wonderful
Edgeworthia is starting to pop.
JM, wish the bark was brighter.
Not much out there, with this sun we are having maybe more will start to show.

Good color, Julia. I've been working on spring cleanup as the temps allow, although I'm only good for a couple hours until my fingers turn to ice (that dirt is still pretty chilly).

Here's another fisherman down at our pond - trying out my new camera with a bigger zoom, a bit pixelated or something, but manageable:

Great shot! Is that a king fisher? I'm going t brave the cold later today to pull chick weed! I've been a wimp for too long, have to get out there.

Ice Breaker Gala

No, it's a heron with his head tucked in. We get them a lot - I can never tell if it's the same bird or just random birds, but I've never seen more than one at a time down there. One recently came up by my fish pond in the front yard and flew past the window at eye level - boy was that a surprise - those guys are huge.

I saw a swan float down slowly for a water landing, and all I could think was that it looked like a Concorde.

Of course it's the Concorde that looked like a swan!

The great blues have raided all the fish ponds in my neighborhood, downtown Olympia. Intermittent fencer around the perimeter for raccoons and possums with one strand across the top for herons has saved my gold fish from totally disappearing. Still see a heron on the roof or in the fir trees about once a month. Guess they are checking to see if I've turned the fencer off.

It is quite a magnificent bird. lol. I have one tattoo'd on my chest (upper left) in full flight. Just love them. But I would electrocute their pin feathers if they were after my fish too. Fricasseed Heron ala Stella.

I bought some spring bulbs (daffy's tulips etc) last fall and planted them in a square pot about 20x20x20. It has been in the basement (50F) all winter and I am bringing up tubers, bulbs, etc and wondering if it would be safe to put it outside. Since it is in a pot and we could get below zero would they be safe? I can wait til later, like March or so if need be.

Not to brag and coming to and end