BS: Spring is here

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Charmion
Date: 11 Apr 19 - 10:01 AM

Yes, Keb, Stratford is a hub of hog husbandry.

Tourists drawn to our little gem of a town generally think that Stratford is about Art in general, and Theatre in particular. Live here for any length of time, and one quickly learns that Stratford is actually about Farming in general (and Pork in particular), with a sideline of light industry and rather a lot of hockey and church on the side. The theatre festival is merely the top dressing on this fertile mix, bringing substantial numbers of cash-heavy customers to the downtown businesses that, in other towns, died of starvation when the malls arrived. Stratford has a Wal-Mart and a big-box Canadian Tire, but Downie Street -- the main commercial drag -- still boasts a genuine old-fashioned independent department store.

Every now and then, when the wind is in the wrong quarter, the reek of hog manure seeps inescapably through town, vigorously reminding us of the true foundation of local prosperity.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Apr 19 - 09:37 AM

The trees have now turned green and you can no longer see through the forests.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 10 Apr 19 - 06:30 PM

See the Varmints thread for
an expert opinion on
what worms need when
they come out in the rain.
Donuel is on the right track -- oxygen --
but it's more complicated than "not drowning".

Thanks for the Stratford, Ontario update.
I didn't know you were surrounded by hog farms. We live and learn.

A thought for the Mad Swans
and their cygnets in Senoufou's town not far from the river.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Charmion
Date: 09 Apr 19 - 09:25 AM

Here in Stratford, Ontario, Spring has most definitely sprung. The municipal swans are on the river, the robins are bobbing around everybody's lawn, and the red-wing blackbirds are buzzing unwary walkers who get too close to THIS IS MY TREE -- PISS OFF! I spotted the first band of intrepid Asian tourists downtown last week, and the actors (members of the Stratford Theatre Festival company) have returned, like the swallows to Capistrano.

This being the heart of hog country, the unmistakable pong of pig poop is in the air most days, so the pork producers are hosing out their barns.

In this halcyon period between the disappearance of snow and the arrival of the first car-trippers, there is still parking for locals within hailing distance of the nice restaurants and coffee shops. We enjoy it while it lasts.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Apr 19 - 04:43 PM

keb, its trying not to drown

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Apr 19 - 04:33 PM

Windows open!

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 08 Apr 19 - 12:38 PM

Yes, the spring peepers are significant to me every year,
but it is
another life form that clenches it for me, spring-wise:

the earthworm.

Today, after a night and a morning of rain,
the earthworms are out of the soil
and positively cluttering the concrete pavement.
I'm darned if I know
what an earthworm is trying to accomplish
on concrete pavement, but there it is.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Apr 19 - 08:43 AM

Some days the breath of Spring is the bad breath of sour mulch that smells like vomit and rages into that good night.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Apr 19 - 04:23 PM

"Seeing a post from Senafou is like spring sunshine but alas her soul was poisoned by a mean boy whose posts are often November wind gusts on their way to the dead of winter. Its best to remember his September."

And you're an arsehole. Get yourself another hobby, please.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 06 Apr 19 - 12:42 PM

More green in the grass than in the trees at this point.

The trees are still like,
Really? You sure about that?
If we put out buds, the buds won't freeze?

But the green grass is pushing through the dried brown/yellow growth.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 05 Apr 19 - 04:47 PM

... and here, at last, comes the rain.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 03 Apr 19 - 02:08 PM

Apropos "Sing of Spring," the Ira/George Gershwin song
from the movie Damsels in Distress,
the disagreement continues apace:

what is that dodgy line in the middle?
Is it

"jug a jug a jug"

or is it

"chuck a chuck a chow" ?

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: JennieG
Date: 03 Apr 19 - 01:34 AM

Meanwhile, down south in the Land of Oz it is finally autumn! We had some very welcome rain at the weekend, and now summer's heat seems to have finally departed......although the forecast is for slightly above average April temps.

Some towns and villages not far from here had their first frost of the season on Monday. We had scarcely any frost last winter; the lack of rain and subsequent dryness meant there was no moisture in the ground to freeze.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Donuel
Date: 02 Apr 19 - 06:27 PM

One year Boston had their snow reemoval piles still around in August

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 02 Apr 19 - 11:55 AM

The big parking lots in the retail shopping districts
hereabouts
have still got what I call
"parking-lot icebergs" in them.

The difference is that,
a month or two ago,
these things dominated parking lots great and small,
and they were towering things, high above the roofs of parked cars.

Now they have dwindled to a much lower height,
there are fewer of them,
and they are covered in dirt.
And there are more open parking spaces
than there are blocked-by-snow-and-ice parking spaces.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Apr 19 - 06:20 AM

Peak cherry Blossom day at the Jefferson Memorial is today.
It is a nice backdrop for the Washington Monument to have sex with the Viet Nam memorial

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Apr 19 - 03:27 AM

I keep a running account of matters year 'round. Here is what I wrote when this month began: "March 1, 2019: 8 o'clock AM, 28 degrees. Forecast: 36. Sunny and calm."

Very much like today, the last day of the month. Neither lamb nor lion.

It isn't quite Spring yet in southeastern Alaska, the ground is still frozen and snow (!!) is forecast for this coming Thursday and Friday but bushes and trees are budding and I saw that the day lily spikes are up a good inch and a half on the sunny side of the house.

I was thinking metaphorically of political things when I wrote this to a friend- but it works here:
"A loud bellow, rough and creaking from long disuse: HOPE!
And Spring answered. Hurrying from the mountains, rushing through the valleys, slipping under thatch and brush, in a tinkling, tiny voice growing ever stronger, Spring answered, I am coming!

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Peter the Squeezer
Date: 29 Mar 19 - 03:49 PM

All the world seems in tune on a spring afternoon
when we're poisoning pigeons in the park.



Thanks to Tom Lehrer

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Mar 19 - 07:50 PM

Seeing a post from Senafou is like spring sunshine but alas her soul was poisoned by a mean boy whose posts are often November wind gusts on their way to the dead of winter. Its best to remember his September.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 28 Mar 19 - 03:24 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 25 Mar 19 - 05:41 PM

... and at long last,
the spring peepers have decided that it is warm enough
to come out and shriek, I mean, peep.
They are going at it hammer and tongs
in the ditch
next to the railroad tracks
behind the public library.
There's a parking lot next to said ditch,
and you can't walk to your parked car
without hearing this din.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Gurney
Date: 30 May 18 - 02:23 AM

Spring may be there, but Winter is here, next Friday.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Senoufou
Date: 27 May 18 - 04:58 PM

Ha! They haven't got 'six tiny goslings'!!! (silly old lady) They are of course CYGNETS!

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Senoufou
Date: 27 May 18 - 03:02 PM

Those blooming swans are at it again this year. Saw them yesterday down by the village shop, painfully hobbling along with six tiny goslings, who are far too young to be trying to walk a mile behind their parents.
It's heartbreaking,it really is.

Kindly villagers were watching over their progress, and keeping an eye out for oncoming traffic, but they can't be there every morning and every evening throughout Spring.

I just can't figure out why they do this. It's obviously a struggle.
My husband said yet again he'd like to help them and get them into our car (!) to give them a lift to the lake. I keep having to tell him the pen and the cob would attack him - adult swans are very dangerous, especially when they have cygnets. But he's like me, a bit 'sorft'!!

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 27 May 18 - 11:20 AM

And now that it's the last weekend in May,
we're getting April showers with April temperatures to match.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 21 May 18 - 12:42 PM

Just reflect, fellow spring-watchers,
that two months hence,
summer will be in full force, and we will be thinking:
I miss those nights in spring when you didn't need refrigerated air . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 19 May 18 - 07:16 PM

And more, more, more rain.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Senoufou
Date: 19 May 18 - 03:00 AM

I reckon I was too gloomy too soon about husband's hay fever. He suddenly stopped sneezing and has been fine for a week or two. The oilseed rape is still in full flower, and I've never seen so much May blossom - the hedges around all the fields are thick with it. But he now hasn't even a sniffle! Perhaps that local honey has done its job after all.
Cuckoo going mad this morning at dawn, tooting away in the wood behind us. Very poignant sound.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 18 May 18 - 07:54 PM

Spring having sprung,
there is so much green
that some areas are unrecognizeable from a month ago.

Tomorrow our area is due for more rain,
so the green growing things
will be as aggressive as ever.
The hedge bushes look twice as big,
the deciduous ones anyway,
and one on a local sidewalk
is starting to crowd the walk itself. Wants trimming.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 26 Apr 18 - 08:50 PM

Finally, a spring storm instead of a blizzard.
The proof!

the EARTHWORMS were wriggling on the pavement.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Senoufou
Date: 25 Apr 18 - 03:20 PM

Ah yes, hay fever. My poor husband has started to sneeze constantly, feels blocked up and can hardly breathe. The medications make him drowsy and dopey, and he has to drive to work and handle heavy cleaning machinery.
There are numerous fields of oilseed rape around our house and also, sadly, around the school where my husband works. The yellow flowers are now in full bloom, and it's this pollen particularly which makes him so poorly. That and the May blossom in the hedgerows.
We've been trying local honey from our village beekeeper, which we thought might desensitise him, but it doesn't seem to have worked. :(

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Apr 18 - 11:42 AM

The warmer weather has been here for a few weeks (off and on). The daffodils finally bloomed and the iris are now way off-peak, and yesterday an unidentified variety of pollen buildup hit me right between the eyes. Something is blooming and is going to require a neti pot and drugs to clear out the reaction in my poor sinuses.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 23 Apr 18 - 12:50 PM

Another first:

First time that, when parking in an exposed parking lot at lunchtime,
I opened the windows a crack before locking up and leaving the car.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 21 Apr 18 - 01:30 PM

Bright yellow forsythia blossoms, for the first time.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 20 Apr 18 - 02:43 AM

The swallows finally arrived yesterday, about a week later than usual.

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 19 Apr 18 - 07:02 PM

Behind my apartment building is a bed of tulip bulbs.
The big flukey green leaves are up,
but this morning there was sleet,
and now the flukey leaves are sprawled in the dirt every which way.
Maybe the tulip stems and buds downstairs
are having second thoughts about poking themselves above ground.

In the meanwhile, the peepers are peeping frantically,
the bird calls can't be told apart because
all the birdies are hollering and trumpeting at the same time,
especially on a rainy sleety morning.

The trees are stealthily opening buds of green.
And some of the marshlands are still dangerously near flood stage.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 18 Apr 18 - 12:44 PM

It is not well and truly Spring until we can go seven full days without snow or flakes in the air.

Spring was again reset on Monday, April 16th (or, as I suspect it might be, January 107th).

My snowdrops, crocuses, and little blue things are not happy. My daffodil buds remain tightly closed.

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Apr 18 - 12:21 PM

After a 3 inch rainfall the trees went from transparent bare branches to an opaque tree line of fairy green in one day

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Apr 18 - 06:04 PM

"I'm getting my bikini ready..."

Me too. :-(

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 16 Apr 18 - 04:20 PM

The spring rain is certainly here -- coming down in buckets.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 14 Apr 18 - 06:31 PM

For the first time,
bare trees in my area
have buds with tiny green bits and pieces of things busting out.

Not a minute before time either.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Senoufou
Date: 13 Apr 18 - 03:11 PM

The weather lady on BBC TV has promised us at least 22 degrees C on Sunday and most of next week. I'm getting my bikini ready... heh heh!

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 13 Apr 18 - 02:51 PM

Only a little ice still visible in one of the smaller local ponds. Ice out at Mendum's was about a month ago and Swain's a week or so ago.

Yesterday I saw turtles on "Turtle Rock" in the little pond across the road from Mendum's. And I had a summer tanager fly across the road in front of the car.

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Senoufou
Date: 12 Apr 18 - 10:54 AM

Sorry keberoxu, I've just seen your question about the Mad Swans.
No, it's a bit early as yet. Their cygnets start walking around mid-May. But Wroxham (we were there yesterday) is absolutely thronged with swans. More than I've ever seen. There were quite a few coach tours (from oop North) having their packed lunches at the picnic tables, and the inevitable mugging by aggressive and hungry swans was in full swing. Really funny!

In our village, the fields are completely under water and look like lakes. The real lakes have joined up, so all the water birds are having a great time. The farmers, not so much...

I've noticed lots of fields that aren't flooded being prepared for potatoes. (deep furrows) Good choice, as spuds love rain.

Our pair of wood pigeons that seem to get fatter and fatter (husband loves them and is always feeding them) have started their very loud "doo, doo, doo-doo DOOOO!" at dawn. He's not quite so keen on them now!

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: beardedbruce
Date: 12 Apr 18 - 09:26 AM

Mentioned, but not given in it's entirety ( From Tom Lehrer):

I'd like to take you now on wings of song, as it were, and try and help you forget perhaps for a while your drab, wretched lives.

Here's a song all about spring-time in general, and in particular
one of the many delightful pastimes the coming of spring affords us all.

Spring is here, a-suh-puh-ring is here.
Life is skittles and life is beer.
I think the loveliest time of the year is the spring.
I do, don't you? 'course you do.
But there's one thing that makes spring complete for me,
And makes ev'ry sunday a treat for me.

All the world seems in tune
On a spring afternoon,
When we're poisoning pigeons in the park.
Ev'ry sunday you'll see
My sweetheart and me,
As we poison the pigeons in the park.

When they see us coming, the birdies all try an' hide,
But they still go for peanuts when coated with cyanide.
The sun's shining bright,
Ev'rything seems all right,
When we're poisoning pigeons in the park.

Lalaalaalalaladoodiedieedoodoodoo

We've gained notoriety,
And caused much anxiety
In the Audubon society
With our games.
They call it impiety,
And lack of propriety,
And quite a variety
Of unpleasant names.
But it's not against any religion
To want to dispose of a pigeon.

So if sunday you're free,
Why don't you come with me,
And we'll poison the pigeons in the park.
And maybe we'll do
In a squirrel or two,
While we're poisoning pigeons in the park.

We'll murder them all amid laughter and merriment.
Except for the few we take home to experiment.
My pulse will be quickenin'
With each drop of strychnine
We feed to a pigeon.
It just takes a smidgin!
To poison a pigeon in the park.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 11 Apr 18 - 10:14 PM

....and the Boston Marathon is forecast to be rained on.
At least it won't be ... gulp ... snow.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 11 Apr 18 - 04:20 PM

I saw the first firefly of the year night before last, and heard the first Chuck-Will's-Widow last night.

(Chuck-Will's-Widow is a close cousin of the Whippoorwill, but he doesn't get mentioned in song lyrics.)

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 10 Apr 18 - 01:06 PM

You are right, Bat Goddess, about the joggers
They went bare-kneed weeks ago hereabouts.

I have now seen ducks by one pond
and geese in one parking lot.
Of course the robins are hopping around as if they own the place.

And don't forget the PEEPERS.
Joe Offer and I were exchanging posts about them
on a thread about German songs;
the peepers are peeping as though their species depends on it.
In broad daylight too.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 10 Apr 18 - 01:01 PM

I'll look more favorably towards thinking it is Spring if we can just go a full week without it snowing. Temperature rising above 45F, too, would be a nice touch. I still have mounds of blackened snow next to the deck (foot of the driveway) and at the head of the driveway, but it's no longer blocking my view of the road.

Maple sugaring is well under way, but it's not TRULY Spring, of course, until I see the first snowy egret...yard sale...dog, ears flapping, hanging out of a car or pickup truck window...bare knees on letter carriers. Bare knees on joggers have been sighted, but they never really went away. (Joggers are..."different".)

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 08 Apr 18 - 03:43 PM

Eliza/Senoufou,
is it time for the Mad Swans to start their progress? Or too early yet?