Dancing in the Rain

Deer Damage-Arborvitae

Rain, glorious rain!  It’s supposed to rain and be cold all week but I’ve got a smile on my face.  Why?  Because we are still a parched landscape despite the decent snow we got over the winter. 

I actually got chills down my spine yesterday when I drove by two nearby ponds.  I was shocked to see that both ponds are bone dry…not a drop of water in them!  I had figured with the big snow melt just a few days ago that the ponds would be full and we’d be hearing the frogs singing by now.   But there was nothing.

So, you won’t find me grousing about the gray, drizzly forecast this week.  Instead I’ll be out dancing in the rain (in my winter coat of course ‘cuz it’s still bleeping cold!

And I need to dance.  It's been a frustrating winter, with the drought conditions and desperate animals eating plants and shrubs that previously were protected by their proximity to the house and religious spraying of repellent.  

Unearthed and disemboweled tulips courtesy of the squiirels

It's a real downer and maybe I'd give up, except at the same time as I've been finding all the deer/squirrel/rabbit damage to my garden, I've found lots of lovely perennials and critter-resistant bulbs sprouting now that the snow is gone.  Hope springs eternal, right?

A Dash of Color on a White Winter Day

Peek A Boo!  I see you!

Got a taste of Spring yesterday with all the warm weather and sunshine. The cold, wind and snow are back this morning though.  Wisconsin weather, you are such a tease!  

My container plants seem anxious for spring as well.  Yesterday  I found overwintered geraniums starting to bloom.  They’ve surprised me a couple of times now.  It’s the first time I’ve overwintered geraniums and when I brought them inside this past Fall they set seed and I had fluffy seedheads all over the dang place.  Some seeds even rooted in the soil of other houseplants.  What a mess but it was kind of fun watching the cats chase the fluff.

The geraniums seem happy but I’ve really struggled to keep my star jasmine vines going.  Even in the basement where it’s cooler, it just isn’t humid enough.  I’m watering them almost daily but they’re still looking dessicated.  Putting them under a grow light might have been a mistake.

These spruce trees are like the local bar-everyone hangs out there.

Yesterday I was out hand-watering young evergreen shrubs in the yard and I noticed that my mature spruce trees are really water-stressed too.  I think animals are also being affected by our strangely warm and dry winter.  The other day there was a lot of activity up in the spruce trees.  Cones were dropping like rain all around me.  Looking up, I saw some bright red birds with black and white wings feeding on the cones still hanging from the branches.  They hung around for several days, stripping the trees of their cones.  

I think they were pine grosbeaks, which I thought wintered in the far north of the state.  I know I’ve never seen them around here before.  I wonder what they are doing down here?

They were a dash of color on a white winter's day and so are my unexpected geranium blooms. Both put a smile on my face.