BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Adrianel
Date: 02 Mar 08 - 06:58 PM

Here in Massachusetts, there are several traditional signs of Spring:
the peepers (small but very noisy frogs) are heard,
motorbikes reappear on the streets,
elderly men who don't have the legs for it are seen in town wearing shorts,
the ground turns to mud, as the top thaws before the lower levels,
a lot of skunks fail to make it across the road,
birds are heard again.
Compared to England, it's late and very short. Not quite the blink and miss it that the Russians have, but is seems that much too soon we're in high (= humid) Summer. On the plus side, the Winter is great. It's cold all right, but dry. None of that damp English (and Belgian - I lived there too) cold that lasts from October to April, sinks into your bones, and makes me at least thorougly miserable.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Mar 08 - 08:55 PM

Supposed to be 60 tommorrow...64 Tues. - a few daffodils peeking out to see if it's safe.(It isn't..at least one more dip expected)

Wash DC area

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemispher
From: pdq
Date: 02 Mar 08 - 09:56 PM

Here in the northern Nevada desert we've been flirting with 60 degrees F for at least a week but haven't quite made it . Tomorrow should be 58 or so they predict. Nice weather to change a radiator (did that yesterday) and trim the fruit trees.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemispher
From: Janie
Date: 02 Mar 08 - 11:02 PM

A few violets are starting to bloom. The henbit (what they call heal-all down here, Bee) is thick in all our yards. Yards and banks are also generously blanketed with now with pale blue clouds of common speedwell. It forms a undercover for the daffodils that are blooming everywhere now. I have one bleeding heart that never went dormant last year that has just set flower-buds (it is at least a month early.) Both the crested and the reticulated iris are in full bloom. Daylilies and garden phlox are sprouting and creeping phlox is just getting going with bloom on south facing slopes.

The wild onions are up. wintercress and chickweed beginning to come on pretty strong.

The effects of this prolonged, exceptional drought are very apparent in the sie of even the wild flowers and weeds.   

saw my first brown thrasher this morning. A pair of house finches are building their nest in a beaded hanging candle sconce that hangs from the eave on my front porch. This will be the 4rd year house finches have done this - I wonder if it is the same pair, descendants of the original pair, or what. Last year and this, there was no 'beating around the bush." It is like they check-in curbside and get busy with the nest building in that same sconce.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Art Thieme
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 12:33 AM

Today, March 2nd, it was 65 degrees F here in Peru, Illinois. With global warming, it seems to me that March is now the new April.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Bee
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 12:41 AM

Ack! We've had another snow/sleet storm, and all these signs of Spring you guys are describing drove me to buy a bunch of daffs at the grocery store t'other day!

Hmm... Janie, we call a different little blue-purple flowering plant Henbit, has roundish leaves with a 'bite' out of the end of each, hence, 'hembit'. ;-) I'm very fond of all the little flowering weeds we have, the Creeping Charlies (or Ground Ivy), the various Chickweeds, Corn Spurge(?), Coltsfoot (always the very first flower), Poor man's Pepper, wild Forget-me-nots, and Eyebright (a favourite). Sure, they invade the gardens, but they aren't hard to yank out, unlike that Great Curse of My Garden, the Spotted Knapweed, which has roots that certainly would reach Hell, if that place was indeed in the centre of the earth!

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemispher
From: Metchosin
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 02:12 AM

There is a drift of snowdrops on my garden embankment and the flowering cherry is starting to blossom. Eat your heart out, gnu.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: gnu
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 04:35 AM

Oh yeah? Well... okay... I posted this on the "16 inches" thread (aprropriately named because that's about what we got) yesterday afternoon....

It's THE SUN!!! was out for about ten minutes.

I just delivered supper to me mum. I didn't take my reading glasses off the bridge of my nose. It wasn't wasn't bad when I began my journey of about twenty steps (she lives next door). At about step ten, the wind gusted and the last three or four steps shoulda been videoed. It was like someone turned out the lights. I was clutching the cloth covered plate of grub against my chest with one hand and had my other hand at full extenson, feeling for the house. Of course, I had my keys in that hand and dropped them when I contacted the house... yup, in the f***in snow!

Hey the sun is... well, it was.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 08:43 AM

An article in today's (03.03.08) 'Independent' newspaper states that the UK's leading expert on phenology (the study of the timing of natural events), Dr Tim Spark's is probably going to be made redundant.

Dr Spark's, "...has led the way in demonstrating that the plants and animals were already responding to global warming, before people were even aware of the problem." He currently works for the Monks Wood Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, near Huntingdon, which the Government is planning to close down.

Well, we can't have these pesky scientists demonstrating that the endless pursuit of greater and greater profits has consequences, can we?

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemispher
From: Sorcha
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 09:08 AM

AND it's 'Spring Ahead' Sunday, March 9 in the US! Aaarrrggghhhh.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Amos
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 09:14 AM

This weekend has been particularly tough on us here in San Diego. A temperature change interrupted the pleasant rain we were experiencing, and dumped a good eleven inches of bright sunlight on all of us. Families were forced to break out their stored summer clothing, and many folks over the weekend just abandoned their cars in the La Jolla Shores parking lots and set off on foot, trudging along the glistening sands in the whirling, glittering sunlight. No fatalities were reported, however.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemispher
From: Rapparee
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 09:21 AM

Dear Amos,

Bite me.

Sincerely,
Rapaire

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: gnu
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 10:48 AM

I'll second that, Rap... ditto for Art, just in case.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: RangerSteve
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 06:45 PM

Daffodils are sprouting in my front yard.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemispher
From: Janie
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 08:05 PM

Bee - Oops! I know better and did it anyway!    Heal-all (prunella vulgaris) is NOT called henbit here,( except when people like me get confused.) Thanks for setting me straight.

Heal-all is common here, but not as common as henbit or purple deadnettle, both of which are done blooming and often dormant before heal-all begins to bloom around these parts.

Such a wondrous thing about these 'weeds', is they are so adaptable as to be common in my garden here in the southern USA, and your garden 1500 miles or more to the north of me.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Bee
Date: 03 Mar 08 - 09:03 PM

They are wonderful little weeds - and quite a few of them aren't even natives, but tagged along with us when we migrated from Europe. A favourite thing of mine to do, when I lived near a set of train tracks, was to hike along the line in midsummer and see what Western or Central Canada plants (usually annuals) had managed to hitch a ride on a dusty train car, to flourish for just one summer in an environment that wouldn't allow them the time to propagate.

Once, not near a railroad but in a pine stand in a dry area, I found a very beautiful flower that I've never identified. It was lavender in colour, large as a small tulip, but with a nodding (bell) head. The edge of the bell was spreading and ruffled, and a darker purple than the body of the flower. Leaves were strap-like, plant eight to ten inches high, stem thin. It looked like it might have been a wild lily of some sort, but it had no separate petals, just the entire bell (like a harebell). Also, not likely a lilium, more likely an annual of some kind. I guessed its seed flew in with a migrating bird from some Southern location, and just managed to find the spot where it could grow..

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 05:08 PM

Snow on my plentiful daffodils last night, but no accumulation. Bright and warmer today. Those darned cannas are coming up in the bed beside the front porch. I have to dig it out because it is full of granular roof debris from the decomposing roof I had to replace last fall. So I'll dig out the tar and the canna roots. I don't want them there.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Bee
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 05:58 PM

Sounds a nasty little job, SRS.

I finally saw a sign of Spring this morning. No fleurs or froggies, but as i walked on the frozen wasteland that is our dirt road this morning, the first flock of Canada Geese, calling continuously as they come North.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 06:15 PM

Linten roses are in full bloom here in Page Co., Va... And they are beautiful...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Becca72
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 06:18 PM

Spring? I'm still waiting. Here in Southern Maine it was about 54° at 10am when I came to work. Saturday last we got about 8" in a snow storm and tomorrow they are predicting an ICE storm for the area. But today it was 54°!! I quit winter.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: gnu
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 06:04 AM

Still waiting? We had spring again yesterday and the day before yesterday (aftera day with about 400mm of snow with wind). It was soooo nice outside. Snowing again as I type. 20mm if sleet to come before spring rain again this afternoon. Suppose to be +5C and sunny the next two days.

Maybe this is "sprinter"?

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemispher
From: curmudgeon
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 10:37 AM

Now, with only 13.5 inches to go to erase all previous records for snowfall in NH, it's raining freezing stuff. And the only thing springlike about t are the tips of firewood chunks sprouting from the snow that's left - Tom

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Arnie
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 10:59 AM

Reports this weekend of loads of Dutch caravanners heading up the East Coast to Scotland - must be Spring then!

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Bee
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 11:27 AM

'Sprinter'! Right you are, gnu, and it's a completely miserable and typical early March day here, and my poor husband was supposed to be working outside somewhere in the NB wilderness today. Hopefully they shut the job down until it's over.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemispher
From: Janie
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 02:57 PM

I don't mean to be cruel, but the first of the 'Red Riding Hood" greigii tulips in my garden has been blooming since Monday.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: black walnut
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 03:23 PM

Spring? Ha. I'm going out to shovel again....

~b.w.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Bee
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 03:26 PM

Janie... whimper..

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemispher
From: Jeri
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 03:34 PM

It rained last night, it rained this morning, and it froze on the trees. I went to the market, and on the way home, the sun came out. I got out of the care, and the world was LOUD! Dogs were barking birds were chirping or cawing, depending on their proclivities, and nearly drowning it all out was the sound of ice melting and falling or dripping on everything below. It's gorgeous out there!

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemispher
From: Janie
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 03:54 PM

Come July and August, when I am sweltering in 95F at 9:00pm in an unairconditioned house, with a yard full of dead things from two years of drought, taking 3 minute showers due to massive regional water shortages, I will revisit the pros and cons of living in the southern USA, and wonder why I get no sympathy from you guys.

Can I take back the link to the tulip?

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Bee
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 06:26 PM

There is that side of things, Janie. Our Spring is late and long and wet and cold, and a frost can occasionally kill your flowery hopes in the middle of June, but when Spring does finally make it, everything wild bursts into leaf and blossom all at once, every tree and shrub is flaunting blankets of flowers and uncurling green leaves at the same time. And our Fall goes on into November, usually sunny and mild long after the bugs have all diasappeared.

Plus, I lived in Florida for a year, and while I don't know about your area, that tropical paradise sports chiggers, ticks, black widow spiders, enormous mosquitos, monster cockroaches, fire ants, poisonous snakes, alligators, tremendous lightning storms, tornados, sinkholes into which your house can fall. Now, the abundance of fresh ripe fruit and the scent of gardenias may almost make up for those shortcomings...

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemispher
From: Janie
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 07:42 PM

LOL!

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Bee
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 12:42 PM

Oh frabjous day! Last night's rain, high wind and thick fog has melted the lake ice! It's still furiously windy, and all that's left of what was a solid sheet of ice yesterday is a floating skim of slushy crystals, driven into the downwind coves and diappearing fast. Now I can anticipate a visit from flocks of Common Mergansers. These handsome birds stop on our lake to feed and to court here every year on their way to nesting grounds further North, and they are seldom more than a day or two behind the thaw.

This has made me so happy that I've had my first genuinely creative idea since November. Spring Ahead!

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemispher
From: Janie
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 11:36 PM

Yep. it's spring. The ants are back. big ants. Little ants. Brown ants. Black ants. In the corners of the bathtub. marching along the baseboards. along the back of the kitchen sink.   Drop a breadcrumb from a sandwich in the countertop, miss wiping down one tiny little spot after supper, leave a dish in the sink, and they will soon be right on it.

Boric acid solution doesn't slow them down. Terramite slows them down some - but actually seems to draw more in from outside. Hundred year old wood house. Hollow walls. Lots of cracks and crevices that give access from the outside to tiny creatures. Being of the organic persuasion I have refused to consider the services of an exterminator for the 14 years we have lived here. But I think I'm about to surrender.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Art Thieme
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 10:45 PM

With global warming, me thinks that March is the new April.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 11:19 PM

Janie, visit my pal The Dirt Doctor. I haven't been back to the site in ages, but he is always good for remedies for things like ants. And he's on several radio stations around the U.S. as well as streaming online on Sunday mornings for a couple of hours.

Funny, I just did a search in the forum. On a short discussion about fire ants, a woman said she has had great luck sprinkling nutrasweet (aspartame) on them. Hell, it'll kill us sooner rather than later, might as well take some ants with you!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 11:21 PM

Oh--and Spinosad. Green Light makes one version. It's recommended by the Garrett (the Dirt Doctor).

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Bee
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 10:36 AM

Five mergansers showed up yesterday - I've just got home, so now I'll be watching for the main flock to arrive. The chickadees have switched their song from 'chickadeedee' to sweet weather. I heard a White Throated Sparrow this morning trying to remember his song - it seems to take them a while to get up to 'maids, maids, maids, put the teakettle on'.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: gnu
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 02:11 PM

Bee.... I stopped to take pics of some pines with a coat of ice and icicles dripping from the tips of their branches, dancing in the sun. Truly beautiful. While I was taking the pics, I noted ALL THE DUCKS whipping around above!! Oh, gosh I hope we are in for an early spring.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Bee
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 02:23 PM

Oh my, I hope so, gnu (bet those pics are pretty). I heard there might be another weekend bout of nasty weather, but the local weatherpersons are being quiet about it, even snow-lovin' Cindy. Odd, my husband never complains when she announces bad weather, but commonly asserts that the other forecasters are no doubt 'drunken bums!' when they do the same. Er, except for Maria, when she fills in.... hmmmm...

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 03:57 PM

Supposed to get up to 83 later this week. It goes from cold to hot fast here (this isn't hot). I miss having a long drawn out spring, but I'll take whatever I can get. Summer here is a killer.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Penny S.
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 04:01 PM

First bumblebees were in December, I think.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: gnu
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 05:16 AM

Bee... if it happens in the sky...

Your husband is distracted by Cindy? Not I. Well, maybe a little. Especially on Fridays. On Fridays, she usually wears a sweater, often black, with a simple necklace of.... ahem! You say we might get some snow or whatever toward the weekend?

... Cindy Day knows why.

PS - That Peter Coade is a drunken bum!

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemispher
From: bobad
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 05:27 PM

Heard the song of the red winged blackbird for the first time today - a sure sign of spring but he will have to be intrepid as we have about 80 cm. of snow still on the ground.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 05:31 PM

Our woodpeckers have been busy for a couple of weeks now, hammering the woods across the street from me. Sounds wonderful!

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: gnu
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 05:36 PM

0.8m? Oh my. My heart bleeds for you. With envy! They are telling us now to expect near that much on Monday, on top of a shitload more than 800mm.

It's beautiful here as I type. -6 and sunny. -18 tonight. Maple slurpup weather. If you can get around the streets that are full of ice... salt has run out.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemispher
From: skarpi
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 05:39 PM

its comin , but we have few more weeks until then

ATB skarpi

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: gnu
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 05:46 PM

Full moon on Good Friday. Within ten days of that, we will know.

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Bee
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 06:51 PM

We got 20cm of snow last night, wet and fluffy, neighbour plowed me out, but I had to shovel our large deck off- heavy stuff. But the lake is still open and Mergansers are courting on it.

And yeah, gnu, more coming on the weekend...sigh...

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: gnu
Date: 14 Mar 08 - 05:12 AM

Oops!!! Sorry....

"They are telling us now to expect near HALF that much on Monday, ..."

Subject: RE: BS: Early Signs of Spring - northern hemisphere
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 14 Mar 08 - 06:58 AM

The shelduck are back (Northants. UK). Saw my first bumble bee last evening.

Spring in the air.

Spring in the air yourself, Vicar !