Look what I found behind an old barn at the back of a field! So overwhelmed by the beauty of such incredible masses of cherry blossoms I forgot to take a photo of the snowfall of white petals swirling around me and blanketing the ground. You’ll just have to imagine!
For those who haven’t had enough of it… And for the rest of you, this photo is so you don’t forget!
Summer-weight blanket of snow…
Too light when the north winds blow!
We had a big spring snowstorm. John went to get a shovel and look who he found. Whitetail deer are known to be resourceful but this yearling surprised him almost as much as he surprised her!
To all my friends in Maine: Don’t give up hope! The grass is winning here! You should expect to see it in a couple months…
Hi buds! Careful examination of trees and ground reveals that magnolia and daffodil blossoms are just around the corner! But don’t put your scarves away yet. We will undoubtedly see more of this first.
Thin ice at 30 degrees on left. Thick ice at 10 degrees on right.
Star burst patterns on thin ice remind me of cut lead crystal.
Snow creates a wonderful Nature Newspaper! Identifying tracks in the snow can be more difficult than one would expect. Google showed me that rabbit tracks and squirrel tracks look sort of similar. There was only one set of tracks in the road so I couldn’t analyze a repeating pattern. My final decision was ‘rabbit’. But I will look again this afternoon to see if there are more clues.
Per Google: Rabbit tracks are one of the most commonly seen after a snow. Look for the repeating bound patterns. (Based on the pictures on Google, the tracks above were not made by a bounding rabbit.) Each group of 4 tracks tends to form a tall, thin rectangle. Squirrel bound patterns tend to be much more blocky. Rabbits also have small round toes and fur covered feet while squirrels have long fingers. (I could not see ‘fingers’.)
Meanwhile back at the piliated woodpecker’s favorite tree there is more news about its feeding activity. It snowed Saturday. I didn’t walk Sunday. This morning there were lots of new wood chips on the snow. So we can conclude that the piliated had a meal here sometime between Saturday evening and Monday morning.
Another ‘newspaper’ article to watch for is bird nest locations, easy to spot in bare trees. Now if I could just learn to identify the nests…
Also please sign up for my blog so you don’t miss any of them and help me find a ‘proper’ name for my blog. Someone suggested “Who the heck is Carrie Staples.wordpress.com”…
Living in southern Maryland has caused me to alter my definition of a snowstorm. If it’s going to snow, I want it to cover the grass completely. Yesterday the grass won.
carriestaples 