Blooming!

It snowed last night, and it is going to snow tomorrow night but today...

 I found the first bloom of spring. A creeping myrtle flower in the rock garden. The earliest flowers are always found near the foundation of the house, because it's obviously warmer there, with the sun warming the concrete on sunny days. I was pretty surprised to see this today, though (not THAT surprised, though, because I did actually look for it, and have been looking for them lately. So I knew it could be there).

And while we're on the subject of flowers...

These are the only male catkins on one of my hazelnut trees. It's not looking good for a good hazelnut crop this year.

The weather has been up and down for the last few days, the typical temperature yo-yo. On Thursday it was in the mid-60s, and on Friday it was about 20 degrees colder–and there was a fierce nor-easter that raged all day (and knocked out the power in the evening). Because the temperature was well above freezing we got all rain instead of snow, and of course this time of year you cannot help but calculate how much snow it would have been. We got 2.5 inches of rain that day, which would have been about a foot of snow if it had been below freezing. I sort of wish it had been snow... but maybe not. I have only been able to go snowshoeing once this winter. As I mentioned, last night it snowed, but it all melted in the morning, and I wasn't sure what kind of bug day it would be, after a few days of weird and unsettled weather (and the yo-yo will continue to bob up and down–we're expecting more snow, real snow, tomorrow night). As it turned out, it wasn't a particularly buggy day.

 One fly...

A couple of crane flies that I didn't get any pictures of, and... winter fireflies, of course:

 That one tree that they so love. There were a lot here, but not as many on other trees in the backyard today.

And another unlikable arachnid. I very much prefer spiders.

Tick. Ick.