Weather woes and spring cleaning

Greetings!  It is that time again when I begin to regale you with my tales of gardening, nature and outside happenings!

Alas, we once again had no true winter to speak of.  Sadly the best snow we got was actually just a few weeks ago.  It was a beautiful snow, the wet heavy kind that sticks to the trees and makes everything seem so ethereal, if only for a short while.  The snow was gone within twenty-four hours, all seven inches of it.

The weather has been all over the place.  I have heard Mother Nature being referred to as 'bi-polar', 'off her meds' and even 'hormonal'.  The irony to me about all of this is that historically, the weather is doing what it always does, whatever the heck it wants to!

Friday and Saturday found us basking in sunshine and almost ninety degrees.  Too hot, too fast for every living being.  It also meant it was time to get the pond circulating again and find out were there any fish left!

Tucker was quick to answer the fish question!  They are not only in there but they are huge and beautiful.  I still would like to get a couple of Koi since the current residents are so shy and hardly want to eat in front of you.

We had a great net up over the pond this past winter, huge and with a tight enough weave that it keep the blasted poplar seeds out.  It was glorious until the freak wind storm came and ripped it out of the ground and uncovered the pond!  So it will take a few days of circulating to get a good visual on the bottom and find out just how much muck is down there.  Thankfully, the rocks are gone so getting the leaves out should be fairly easy and not require much more than the pond rake!

We invested a little bit of extra energy to clear the leaves away from the flower beds that I worked so hard on last year.  While doing what we gardeners do in the spring I was delighted to find something lovely blooming among the leaves.

A beautiful bloodroot!  There were lots of flowers blooming, lungworts, Lenten roses and even a blue Anemone has made it's way to that side of my garden!  Of course, the false marsh marigold is everywhere but I saw pollinators all over them, so I can't complain too much.  Even some of the woodland poppies have burst open with their happy yellow flowers. 

So while it felt like summer yesterday, today the temperature will be forty-four degrees.  Which in all honesty would be more pleasant to work in!  I told Randy that next year, I'm going out in my parka and layers to clear the leaves from the flower beds because now they are up and mulching is going to be a challenge!

Happy Spring-Winter-Summer Weekend!