New arrival

Just two days ago I went to a flower bed on the east side of our house to check a crocus that has historically been the first one here to open each spring. It was still buried in a snow bank a foot deep. Yesterday, my wife advised me that there is now one blooming on the west side of the house: I hadn’t even known it was there!

A drink of water

Last night when I went into the kitchen for a drink of water this scene just seemed to catch my eye. The plant sitting in a pot in front of the kitchen window was given to us by a dear friend back in November and these are its third set of blooms. The white image of a buck is a decal on the window glass that is there to help keep birds from flying into the window. The photo was taken from about 10 feet away through a 70 – 300mm lens.

A brief moment

This is a bud on a delphinium that chose to bloom right before a period of very cold weather accompanied by a foot of snow. I was pleased that I caught it in its brief moment of beauty.

Rainy day Crocus

This one picked a dark and rainy day on which to open. It had opened only two or three minutes before the photo was taken.

Finally!

Cool weather blooms

Off and on throughout the winter small flashes of color were visible through the snow in one of our flower beds. Now that most of the snow has melted in the flower bed in the rock wall, it is clear that the color came from some pansies. Bought about four years ago as “annuals”, they have happily blossomed every year since, and very early at that. Some, as these must have been, are bred to stand up to the cold, but these are incredible. A little over a week ago, our night temperature was -8°F: we have since had highs in the low 40′s and nights in the teens or lower 20′s. Today there were blossoms on about a dozen of the plants: