BS: Spring is here

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Senoufou
Date: 23 May 17 - 03:55 AM

I've often had the same thought! We like leaning against the bridge parapet and you can see it all from up there. It's very funny.

The swans really are enormous when up close and personal. When you're seated at the picnic table, their heads are level with your eyes. And they have a glassy stare, right in your face, most intimidating.

They also glide up to all the holiday cabin-cruiser boats moored along the river, begging for food. I've even seen them poke their long necks through open windows of the cabins, cheeky things. You can hear the people inside crying out in surprise.

I absolutely love Wroxham. It's about thirty minutes from our village by car, but we go there often.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 22 May 17 - 06:13 PM

That tourist scene sounds as though you could charge admission just to watch.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Senoufou
Date: 22 May 17 - 03:39 AM

Actually it's quite funny to watch at Wroxham. There are those wooden picnic tables arranged down by the river and the Broad. Unsuspecting tourists from 'oop North' sit there munching on their takeaway food, and suddenly a big swan's head on a huge long neck pops up right beside them, followed by another and another, until they're surrounded by them. They stretch out and help themselves to the food on the table, while the tourists sit frozen in terror!

Meanwhile, under the table are various ducks and Canada geese etc.,idly trying to chew their trousers and shoes, while overhead, dozens of seagulls drop large dollops of wet poo.

It's a laugh a minute down there, as other tourists have rented a boat for an hour, and from the same spot one can watch queues of them heading under the low bridge, where the archway is very narrow. They either bump their heads or crunch the boat. Every few minutes there's a cry of "Ouch!" or "Oh no!"

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Senoufou
Date: 21 May 17 - 05:39 PM

Yes, we have ducks and geese of many kinds, and they all seem to get on well together on the river and the string of lakes keberoxu.

At Wroxham Broad, there are absolutely masses of all types of water fowl, scrounging bread and chips etc off the tourists!

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 21 May 17 - 04:28 PM

About the Mad Swans, Eliza:

does your village also have ducks and geese?
And how do they get on with the swans?

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Senoufou
Date: 21 May 17 - 04:11 AM

The Mad Swans are at it one again, dragging themselves and their seven (this year) cygnets all the way to the lake every day and all the way back again. But - some good news! The powers-that-be have erected two big triangular signs at each entrance to the village, with a lovely silhouette of the swans/cygnets, warning drivers to slow down.

It remains to be seen if the blessed drivers will do so. We've already put up another Slow Down sign warning of children and horse riders, but the lorry drivers take no notice whatsoever and hurtle through the village like bats out of hell. I pray it will never happen, but we're all terrified of finding squashed swans, children or horses on the road one of these days. Why do people whizz about like this so irresponsibly?

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 20 May 17 - 02:15 PM

We have croaking beasties in the evening as well. Loud!

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: leeneia
Date: 19 May 17 - 07:39 PM

Thank you for your poem in the Original Post, Donuel. I like it.

Weather here in the heartland showed that spring is not always gentle. We were under a tornado watch for several hours yesterday, but no tornado appeared. Oklahoma saw 5 tornadoes yesterday, but little property damages and no injuries. The tornadoes were crossing empty land, mostly.

We did get a lot of rain. There were flash floods and leaky roofs.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Donuel
Date: 19 May 17 - 07:17 AM

Spooky bright green light until 8:20 last night/ A solid Layer of clouds over 30,000 ft reflected light long after sunset. When night finally came it was heat lightning all night long. The diaspora of toads migrating last night was a noisy affair.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 18 May 17 - 08:30 PM

Still spring, regardless.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 16 May 17 - 12:13 PM

Mowing the grass lawns!

All that rain has had the grass growing like mad.
Today the lawnmowers are out and growling away.

The smell of freshly cut grass is a fond childhood memory.
And one that I missed during my adult years
in the
(north of the border) state of New Mexico.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Joe_F
Date: 15 May 17 - 06:10 PM

Another (later) spring ritual for me is switching from cooked vegetables to salad at dinner. That doesn't have a formal algorithm, but it looks like happening the day after tomorrow, when it seems we shall be thru with bloody highs in the bloody 50s (F).

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 15 May 17 - 12:29 PM

This is one of my happy springtime memories:

growing up in a small town, where the countryside was given over to quarries (limestone), farms, and the last remains of the forest before the Anglos showed up.

Sunday driving, there was a country route that took your car past a farm during lambing season. Now, this sounds like a creepy thing to do, and if is, then we were a carload of creeps:

We would drive down the country road that went by the pasture. Pull off the road onto the shoulder, turn the engine off, and roll down the windows. Stay in the car and just listen.

That way we could hear the lambs and the grown sheep talking to each other, and watch the lambs gamboling on the other side of the fence. When we were ready, we rolled up the windows, turned on the ignition, and headed for home.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 14 May 17 - 01:12 PM

I like Joe F's algorithm.

Our USA Mother's Day this year is as usual in May, but it feels more like a rainy April day.

The forecast, however, says that during the coming weekdays, we are due for very warm weather.

I couldn't wait, and got my hair trimmed anyway.
And now I don't think they trimmed enough. But I guess that's better than too much. If they don't trim enough, you can always ask to have more taken off.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 05:10 PM

EARTHWORMS! earthworms!
The rain is falling, the sidewalks are wet and warm,
and the earthworms are out on the concrete!

I can't find the silly poem I read in my childhood.
The one that started,
Rain, Wind and Rain!

In which the young (?) earthworms wanted to get above ground
and wiggle around in the rain,
and the old earthworms warned them about getting squashed.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 03:56 PM

Spring is here,
and now, so are the dandelions and the azaleas.
The magnolia buds are swelling as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 01:08 PM

And now we are due for nearly one solid week of rain,
according to the forecast.
Sounds like spring to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 23 Apr 17 - 05:00 PM

Darned if it isn't summer weather again....knock it off, upstairs!

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 22 Apr 17 - 05:20 PM

And BOOM! Stuff on the branches of the trees! Already the sightlines are different, no more bare trees for MONTHS AND MONTHS.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 21 Apr 17 - 03:12 PM

Spring is here, and so is the rain. Good thing too.
After a harsh, icy winter, all the growing things are making up for lost time.
The bare trees finally have buds on the branches.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 19 Apr 17 - 06:34 PM

The trees are still trying to catch up. The winter got icy and bitter late in its time, and the trees are slow to bud or leaf.

However the forsythia are yellow, loud, and proud.

And the surviving peepers are just plain loud.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 17 Apr 17 - 03:36 PM

Laughing along with you, gnu! Don't mind if it snows, when the temperature is borderline freezing anyhow. Just as long as we don't get ICE.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: gnu
Date: 17 Apr 17 - 03:29 PM

I was looking out my kitchen window just now.

At this time of year, when it snows, it's really pretty... because the little bastards melt and die when they hit the ground.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 17 Apr 17 - 11:29 AM

You know Spring has arrived in Boston when they run the Patriot's Day Marathon.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Apr 17 - 01:03 PM

We've had a quarter of an inch of rain in April so far and there's none forecast. I started keeping rainfall records for my garden 24 years ago. The driest month so far has been August 1995 with just under half an inch. Competition on!

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 16 Apr 17 - 11:39 AM

Spring is SUPPOSED to be here on Easter Sunday.

Feels more like...summer. But it's supposed to cool down.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 12 Apr 17 - 01:44 PM

And with the spring comes the rain. That's better. Rain is cool (in this temperate zone it is, at any rate).

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 11 Apr 17 - 07:47 PM

Sounds like Tom Lehrer, "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" !

I'm with gnu, who is growsing on another BS thread that he wants spring back and wants summer to go away. Me too.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: ced2
Date: 11 Apr 17 - 11:50 AM

Yippee,
The peanuts have been well soaked in prussic acid and loaded into the pigeon feeder, the squirrel bait loaded into the attractive (to squirrels that is) trap and the laboratory prepared. Off to the park we go!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Joe_F
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 06:27 PM

The beginning of spring, for me, for tonsorial purposes, is determined by the following algorithm: When, for two successive days, the predicted *and achieved* high is at least 70 degrees F, it is time to get a haircut. That is almost certain to happen tomorrow. Fuzz day!

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: ranger1
Date: 09 Apr 17 - 10:51 PM

Spring is finally here on the coast of Maine. I have woodcocks in the field behind the cottage, the osprey has returned to Googins Island at the park, and today, I found a hazelnut starting to flower. The red maples have been in bloom for a bit, but they're tougher than the rest. And there's a pair of redwing blackbirds singing in the swampy spot in the neighbor's field.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Apr 17 - 08:34 PM

Last week the most delicate yellow fairy green buds burst into infant leaves. Now every day looks more lush than the last.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 09 Apr 17 - 01:55 PM

The trees here are entirely bare. Not a bud, not a leaf.
Not yet, anyway. Now that it is well above freezing,
the trees will spring to visible life in no time.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 08 Apr 17 - 06:57 PM

The moths ought to be back any time now, battering against windows and doors.

It's nice to be in spring. However I have not missed the moths. Not the tiniest bit.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Joe_F
Date: 02 Apr 17 - 06:12 PM

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is on an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March.

-- Robert Frost, "Two Tramps in Mud Time"

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 02 Apr 17 - 01:27 PM

Hey, THERE it is. About time Spring showed up. It's safe for the peeper frogs to come back out. If any survived to hatch, that is.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 01 Apr 17 - 05:20 PM

spring is around here somewhere....must rummage around for it...

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 29 Mar 17 - 12:28 PM

...and now that the snow on the grass is almost gone, here is another snowstorm forecast for the first weekend of April. April Fool indeed.
As a Swiss-Germanspeaking Dominican nun wrote to me:

Im April
thut das Wetter
was es will.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 22 Mar 17 - 03:13 PM

Mad Swans! Good grief! I've only ever observed swans on the water from a distance.

What I hear about swans on this side of the ocean, is how intolerant they are towards geese. Now, Mad Geese, those I'm used to. They are a suburban annoyance, swaggering around parking lots and leaving "greetings" on sidewalks.

Though Spring be here officially, today Spring is bundled up against a thoroughly wintry wind. New England reminds me of the Four Corners on such days: sun, no clouds, bone dry, and that wind blowing. We still have snow on the grass as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: EBarnacle
Date: 22 Mar 17 - 12:29 AM

100. Beautiful, spring day today, cold tomorrow.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Mar 17 - 04:34 PM

A minute ago I could not recall the name spring peepers.
I hate when that happens.

on another note I am thinking Jupiter has an oblong liquid hydrogen metal core that creates internal gravitational turbulence http://www.space.com/34457-jupiter-stripes-go-deep-juno-probe-reveals.html

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Janie
Date: 21 Mar 17 - 12:59 PM

Not to worry about the frogs, Donuel. They just go back into hybernation.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Mar 17 - 09:28 AM

It is a silent Spring here. All the hatched singing/chirping frogs were all killed off due to the mild February followed by a hard freeze.
Perhaps they may return with time.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: keberoxu
Date: 20 Mar 17 - 05:35 PM

T. S. Eliot wrote that April is the cruelest month.

Judging from the forecast, though, cruel weather could not wait for April.
A day or two, including today, will be well above freezing, with sunny skies, and much melting.
Then, later this week, temperatures will plunge: it will be at or sub-freezing DAY AND NIGHT with a bitter winter wind adding that wind-chill factor. That for several days straight.
Then the temperature wobbles upward somewhat for the weekend maybe.

Not sure how March is going to "go out" but right now the extremes are being worked in a pendulum swing.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Janie
Date: 20 Mar 17 - 11:36 AM

After a ridiculously mild winter that was like a very long, early spring, March has thus far been very wintery. Fooled plants that respond more to temps than to day length are thoroughly ruined for this year.

The birds don't care though - Rampant courting everywhere I look. And mosquitos - did I mention mosquitos?

Must be Spring!

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Senoufou
Date: 20 Mar 17 - 09:34 AM

Or Michael Winner.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Mar 17 - 08:36 AM

That could have been Cameron's fault with his "Calm down, dear!"

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Senoufou
Date: 20 Mar 17 - 07:41 AM

Ah Steve, here in Norfolk the word is used instead of 'delightful' or even just 'nice'. One could say, "I met that darling old bwoy in the Pussed Orfice this mornin'." Or, "That darling little owd bairby hev grown since oi larst saw 'im!"

However, I hope the checkout lady was being totally sincere :)

By the way, my rather more savvy friend has informed me that one shouldn't say 'dear' any more, as it's patronising. I often say, "Thank you dear" in shops etc. But apparently it's now the height of dreadful, so I suppose I must stop.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Senoufou
Date: 20 Mar 17 - 07:31 AM

I worry about the bees and also the butterflies; it's far too cold and wet for them to find anything to eat in the way of nectar or pollen.

Those great tits are a blasted scourge (I know I'm in the RSPB but really!) on and on and on and on.... and we have a rather raucous blackbird who sits on our roof warbling (we use the term loosely) at dawn. More like a corncrake. Perhaps he has a sore throat. Our neighbours' one has a lovely fluid song.

Soon I suppose the Mad Swans will start walking down our village street right in the middle of the road with their poor cygnets struggling along behind exhausted. Why oh why do they do this every year? I've been in tears trying to slow down huge lorries in the hope of preventing a horrific squashing.

Subject: RE: BS: Spring is here
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Mar 17 - 07:29 AM

"Darling lambs"

I looked up the interpretation of Sonnet 18 the other day, the one in which Shakespeare refers to the darling buds of May. Interestingly, the word "darling" probably refers to the changing of the flower buds from green to coloured as they open. Despite the affectionate context in which we use the word today, when applied to people it may originally have meant a pubescent girl blooming into young womanhood. I like that. I'll remember that the next time the checkout girl at the supermarket calls me "darling!"