I am sitting in the office typing and glancing out occasionally at the wonderous sky - filled with giant, puffy, floating clouds. The sun is shining and the window is open. We just got in from a walk in the woods, and I am SO glad we went. It was one of the first for Molly and me to go alone... at least since she was very small.
Note her fabulously sensible shoes! Her thrift store shopping is very handy for creek stompin' too, as it turns out.
I've never identified the above wildflower. The flowers resemble Spring Beauty and when they are blooming at the same time one needs to look closely to see a difference. These are a couple of inches taller, I think. the Spring Beauty isn't showing yet. No Trout Lily leaves yet either.
I *think* this is a skunk cabbage. The leaves are very large when mature, about a foot high and resembling loose Romaine lettuce more than cabbage. However, I didn't see what was happening inside the rotting dark purple leaf at the top of the picture until I got it home and looked at it! Isn't that amazing!
Ramps! Our ramps all survived! We planted them several different places and I found them in all of the spots. They are robust and strong. What a delight to find them! The trilliums that will accompany them aren't up yet.
I loved the looks of this stick laying on the woodland floor. We decided it was a mushroom wand.
Galls of some sort, I imagine. Might be fungus. Molly pushed on one of the puffy ones and said that a puff emerged - so it could be a puffball type of fungus.
I would have missed this had I been alone. Molly found this and it was the only one we found of the thousands that will be out in a few short days. Bloodroot.
Several patches of the Dutchman's Breeches are starting to poke their heads up, and uncurling their dusky leaves. The leaves seem to green up quickly in the light.
We watched the goldfish congregating near the surface of the lake as we walked out of the woods. I cannot express how relaxing and centering that little walk was - how those few minutes seem to have changed everything. And if there was any doubt, Spring is indeed going to be arriving soon.
Note her fabulously sensible shoes! Her thrift store shopping is very handy for creek stompin' too, as it turns out. 
I've never identified the above wildflower. The flowers resemble Spring Beauty and when they are blooming at the same time one needs to look closely to see a difference. These are a couple of inches taller, I think. the Spring Beauty isn't showing yet. No Trout Lily leaves yet either.
I *think* this is a skunk cabbage. The leaves are very large when mature, about a foot high and resembling loose Romaine lettuce more than cabbage. However, I didn't see what was happening inside the rotting dark purple leaf at the top of the picture until I got it home and looked at it! Isn't that amazing!
Ramps! Our ramps all survived! We planted them several different places and I found them in all of the spots. They are robust and strong. What a delight to find them! The trilliums that will accompany them aren't up yet.
I loved the looks of this stick laying on the woodland floor. We decided it was a mushroom wand.
Galls of some sort, I imagine. Might be fungus. Molly pushed on one of the puffy ones and said that a puff emerged - so it could be a puffball type of fungus.
I would have missed this had I been alone. Molly found this and it was the only one we found of the thousands that will be out in a few short days. Bloodroot.
Several patches of the Dutchman's Breeches are starting to poke their heads up, and uncurling their dusky leaves. The leaves seem to green up quickly in the light.