April Is the Cruellest Month

In January, we had two weeks of 50+ degree weather and the bulbs thought it was spring and came out of the ground. This turned into a major disaster for my daffodils and grape hyathinchs. They were up too high to weather the winter blasts that followed.

The tulips came up and the rabbits ate all but one, chomped them right off at an inch from the ground. I'll have one tulip.

I thought the crocus would be all right, but the week of rain we had rotted the blooms before they had a chance.

It's really hard to suck it up about the spring bulb disaster. My plants are my babies. Everything else looks all right so far.

Some hideous rhododendrum (sp?) blight has visited the neighborhood and about half of them look dead. Oh what hath global warming wrought?

The bird news is good. Finches, gold finches and chickadees at the thistle seed feeder, lots of activity at the suet (as always) and the regular bird seed is visited by one and all. We have robins, blue jays, titmice, woodpeckers (3 kinds) peewee, cat bird, juncos, sparrows (have not made identification but they aren't English) cardinals, and maybe a red winged blackbird singing in the slough. Not sure. Rabbits (grrr!), gray squirrels, red squirrels, chipmunks, and ducks in the slough. Looks like a deer might have been after the sedum. Could have been the men working in the yard. The chicadees have been pulling out pieces of the doormat for nesting materials. The spring peepers have hatched out and we have a soprano woodland chorus, modulated by some "regular" frogs that croak.

The chives look thick and lucious, but I mourn for my bulbs. It ain't fair!