Surprise!

When I was getting ready to go to bed 

last evening, I looked outside

and saw that it was snowing.

So much for an early spring.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, though.

It seems that it always snows soon after 

I see the first Robins return for the year.

 I awoke this morning to find that we had received about

an inch of snow.

 I know some of my readers miss the stuff,

so enjoy.

 The daffodils were surprised.

Happy early March.

Spring is Here?

I went out to my mail box today and found that my crocuses

have started to bloom.

 First I had to clear some of last year's debris 

before I could get some pictures, though.

 This points out an important lesson that we learned

during our trip to Hobbit Gardens on Saturday:

you can't know what is going on in your gardens 

unless you are out walking in or tending to your gardens every day.

 I brushed the leaves off the purple crocuses.

An hour or so later, 

they opened their blooms.

I even saw my first robins of the year

while out on my walk around the neighborhood today.

Odd how much later I notice the robins here than in Ohio.

I would almost always see the robins return in late January

in Southeastern Ohio.

 

Happy March 1st!

The Birds

As I was feeding my cat his dinner this evening, I heard this sound. I did believe it was the sound of birds. Being the curious soul that I am, I grabbed my camera and went out on the back deck to investigate this sound. You really should click on the pictures so you can better see the birds in flight. Just remember that there were many more sitting in the trees.

And what did I see? Birds. Thousands of birds. And they were all chirping and chattering. All several thousand of them.

This went on for several minutes, as the birds chirped and flew around. Surprisingly, I discovered that these were American Robins. I never knew that robins migrated in such large flocks.

Check out the video below. You won't really be able to see the birds, but the sound you hear is the birds chattering. This might give you an idea of what it sounded like.