Positives: The pyrola is coming along nicely. The flower stalks have gotten taller, as expected. The false Solomon’s seal is blooming. It’s one of my favorite woodland wildflowers, and I plan to feature it in a SITY post later this year, after the berries and fall colors start to show. Now that the winter moth population has been knocked down, blueberries are making a comeback, and that is definitely something worth celebrating. The high bush blueberry shrub that I discovered growing in the back corner of our property has started to develop berries in abundance. A few days ago Marshall noticed that hummingbirds were checking out the empty feeder, so my husband filled the feeder up, and now I see hummingbirds swooping past my office window all day long. Sometimes they perch for a moment on the power lines, presumably so that they can scope out the feeding area before diving in. I can see them out of the corner of my eye as I’m working, and I often pause to watch their antics. I’ve tried to photograph them from my office window, but if they see me or my camera they won’t come near. I need to up my stealth game.
Negatives: The early spring is a honeymoon period during which I like most of what’s happening in Nature (well, as long as there aren’t hordes of caterpillars destroying everything in sight). Early spring is when the trees leaf out, my favorite wildflowers come up, and the air starts to warm but is still fresh. What a lovely time of year that is! But in late spring, summer, and early fall, when it’s hotter (sometimes too hot, and also too dry), the unpleasant and/or dangerous bugs come out in larger numbers, the pollen is thick in the air, and the yard becomes overgrown with less likeable plants, then my mood tends to take a dive. It’s only May, but we’ve already had multiple back-to-back days in which the temperature topped 90 degrees, including one that hit 97 according to our home weather station. While we can’t be sure that those hot days were attributable to global warming, that seems a likely explanation, making those days not only uncomfortably hot but also depressing. I’m a little nervous of what summer might have in store for us. The honeymoon period is over for this year, and I will have to take extra care to keep my mood up from now on.