Spring at Work
20
03, 2024
14
05, 2018
The Return of the Hummingbirds
One of the things we love about the house we bought on our return to Texas was the certification as a Wildlife Habitat House.
Maintaining that environment became our goal as we settled in. We had an unusually cold winter this year. Several days of temperatures below freezing are absolutely not a normal winter in Texas.
Neither are April days in the low 50 degree and high 40 degree range.
A few hardy birds and one or two hummingbirds stayed around, but most of our wildlife disappeared. It’s May and warmer temperatures have returned.
That means bullfrog serenades, cardinals and swallows swooping down and around in their mating dance, mosquitoes buzzing for prey. (Hate that part since I am major mosquito bait.)
Baby squirrels play chase one another and mama shimmies up the bird feeder pole to shake birdseed down to her babies.
Dogwoods, Japanese magnolias, peach trees are filled with blooms. Four o’clock plants are popping up and soon will be bursting with red flowers.
Our hummingbirds are back at the feeders in large numbers. We have five feeders around the yard. One or the other of them always needs refilling now.
Last year I worried that we’d lose our large population of hummingbirds when I started making their syrup instead of purchasing the commercial nectar as the previous owner did. This year it doesn’t seem to matter. I prepare hummingbird syrup at least twice a week.
Unfortunately, carpenter bees have also returned. More about these ugly critters next week.
8
04, 2015
Spring Work
The sun is melting away the lingering snow. Chipmunks and squirrels are scampering in the woods behind our house. Birds are chirping. Grass is turning green.
Poppies are working their way through the soil in the front flower bed. The Aspen trees are budding.
Spring is indeed at work with joyful enthusiasm in our mountains.
The call to dig in the dirt instead of getting words on the page is great.
Are you feeling the twinges of Spring Fever?
24
03, 2014
Signs of Spring
Around here, life is stirring from its wintery slumber.
Walking the dogs today, I spotted the first sprigs of green popping up through the brown fields. Birds circled looking for our feeders.
The mountaintops of the San Juan Mountains are losing their white caps. Ice is sliding from our rooftop in great chunks. Once it’s all gone, the cycle of daytime melting, nighttime freezing will end.
Thanks to our grandson, who spent hours of his spring break with us chopping up the 12-15” of ice from the front walk, we have a safe path into the front yard. Our warm days will keep the thickness from returning. We’ll still have ice, but not the buildup that was so treacherous.
The mini-mountains of dirt from the garage addition excavation last year are turning back to brown. 
I think I preferred the snow cover. Unfortunately, until the ground itself thaws, the landscaper can’t move the dirt around and away.
Every day more and more of the snow covering the flowerbeds melts. Under the snow blanket, I hope the fifty daffodil and tulip bulbs I planted last fall are pushing up.
After thirty years in tropical Houston, I look forward to the smiling faces of daffodils and tulips in my garden and not in a store-bought pot. At least until the deer come to munch on them.
Our trees are budding, but barely. Soon nubs will fill the bare Aspen and Cottonwood branches.
The rich earthy smell of spring is just around the corner too. I can feel it in the air.
You know the scent of snow-cleansed soil and growing things. A perfume combination no amount of chemistry can reproduce.
How about you? Are signs of spring coming to your neck of the woods?