I noticed over the weekend that the bush closest to the front door was starting to show a little green. Just a tiny bit, but it was there. A couple days later, I took a picture because, no really, we're in the first third of March and our bush is already leafing out a bit. Yesterday, one of our room renter clients came in and mentioned the ( Read more... )

After questioning when things were really in bloom, nature went and showed me, oh, we're good now. On the way to work yesterday, I saw several trees and bushes, in a few different places, were starting to leaf out. Aha. Here we go. Our unusual warm weather--we're talking 60s and 70s--has kicked everything into gear. The red buds were awakened last ( Read more... )

This is the time of year where I start to watch for signs of plants coming back to life. Last week I noticed the local willow tree had a bit of yellow-green coming out of it; that's the first plant that will get any color. I can tell it's coming, that the plants are warming up to sprouting things, but it's not quite time--except for the red ( Read more... )

We've hit Green Day. I think ( Read more... )

I've been waiting for this. The willow trees in the area have started taking on that spring green look; I figured the start of the regular greening was imminent. I'm a little surprised it's taken this long, in a way, since we had that spate of above-average temps for a time. Then again, we also had that spate of below-freezing temps just over a ( Read more... )

I'm late with this, but oh well. It's possible, had I been driving around, that I could've declared Green Day more than a week ago. That's when I first started noticing the willow trees in the distance with their yellow-green leaves. As usual, they were the first foliage to change from brown. Last Tuesday, so exactly a week ago, one of the ( Read more... )

It's Green Day! I'm calling it ( Read more... )

Ohmygosh, spring finally found its keys and the directions to Chicagoland and showed up late last week ( Read more... )

Late last week, I started noticing the trees were budding again--at least, those that were smart and didn't start sprouting during our unusual warm spell in February. This is more like it, though still earlier than in past years, when I recall Green Day starting in April. It was the kind of thing where, last Thursday and Friday, I was asking ( Read more... )

We are on our third straight day of record-breaking temperatures. Friday, it was 67F; Saturday, it was 70F; today, I know we broke 65F, which was the old record, but I'm not sure if we've reached the high for today. This is so bizarre. To wit: The tree behind us is already budding and sprouting. Do I count this as Green Day? It's not the only ( Read more... )