For the easily amused

With our late spring there just hasn’t been much in the way of wildflowers appearing yet, but the winter moss is doing extraordinarily well. On the first mile or so of one of my favorite trails today there is a cliffy area where the greens were ever so pretty.

While admiring the moss on the cliff I noticed that there was quite a lot of water dripping through it and then I got sidetracked. What if I could catch a water droplet on a piece of moss? … and here’s where that took me. Sometimes it’s not too bad to be easily amused.

Improvement

Spring has been slow to develop here this year and has little more than morphed into a lingering, wet winter. I’m anxious for the real spring to begin but so far it has not. However, there has been a little improvement. Last week, this is how the neighborhood appeared:

Today, the snow gave way to about an inch of rain, creating a puddle in our west lawn and an opportunity for an “umbrella” shot:

Small-flowered Woodland Star

After a week of snow and rain, the sky cleared a little today and I was surprised to see that the first Woodland Stars of the season are in bloom. The plants are small (only about two inches tall), but the blossoms are as pretty as always.

Sagebrush Buttercups have also spread out the range of their bloom .

Catkins

Another sure sign that spring is here! These are catkins from a black cottonwood, I believe.

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!