Walking out in spring

 This is what happens in this neighborhood about now

Violets, not scented, just wild, dog I think, all over

 

First day of the dogwoods opening

This little feller's been there for years. I don't know if anyone owns and wants him -- he's a few yards outside a fence, on the edge of the trees -- so I end up leaving him there. I hope he doesn't get tossed.

Blossoms, maybe flowering crab?  Please correct if you know better.

More violets everywhere underfoot, which tells you this is damp ground.

Woodpeckers busy all around, crows shouting, Carolina wrens organizing territory, cardinals singing all their songs, a tree packed with mourning doves, like a convention bus dropped them off.

No toads yet. I expect to see one on my front path any day now.

This year the 17 year cicadas emerge. We don't get a lot in this neighborhood, just enough to know they're there and find them lying about on the sidewalks. 

I used to work in an office in cicada territory, old trees,  and the noise was dangerous to hearing. All doors and windows tight shut, still loud. Running to the car hands tight over ears. A few days of being reminded of the power of insects!  Every 17 years, long enough to forget from the last time.

Library and blossom catching up

 Still in Olivia Goldsmith, and today picked up two more attractions, print books this time

And the current Bite Club selection

On the way home, after chats with a couple of friends,  into the park, lovely blossoms smelling like honey

And lovely other blossoms, without smelling of anything other than spring.

And forsythia in the park, all sprawling about, the way I like it, not all tailored and neat the way nature isn't

And my little patio cherry bushes returning after I pruned them down wildly because the fences were going to be replaced any minute. Last summer, that was.

Spice bush likewise

And this little plant is back underfoot, I think chickweed not sure.

 The English version of this smells like ripe apples when you pinch the flower. 

Asparagus here soon. When I grew it, I'd bite the tips off newly picked stems, tasted like green peas. 

Then home to reading, knitting and Irish soda bread

The aggrieved expression on this loaf cracks me up. I bet her relief $$ hasn't come.

Not a bad line-up, all in all.

Dieffenbachia Delight Part the Second

So I wandered out this morning with my cup of coffee, to see how Mrs. D. was getting on, and, screams of amazement and joy, she has a second flower in progress!  see there at the right of the first, which is now developing, its male and female parts hard at work, see, the base now looks different from yesterday, and an unfurling third leaf behind there, which might even be a third one....

 

I must say, she's slow to get there, this is over two years' since she had the surgery that made two plants and a dead bit out of the twisted and unhappy plant my neighbor brought me in from the dumpster, Houseplant Rescue to work, but when she does, she's cookin'. 

This is the plant from the original root.  The other one, from further up the stem originally, equally large, doesn't show signs of flower. 

It may be that only the parent root, not the side shoots, can do this, like the wisteria.  You can grow a wisteria up the entire side of the house, tearing the roof tiles off and choking the chimney and never get a flower unless it's the main root you planted.  Not that I plan to plant wisteria any time soon, hate the damn things, vandals of the plant world...

Yes, I know I get a bit carried away, but oh well.