(for those of us up north....)

 

Move down to California, been spring for awhile now!

 

California too... somehow my wife and I can never keep any plant alive for 2 months...

 

Snowing here. I won’t even post a photo. In denial

 

These guys are everywhere recently, I guess a sign of Spring.

 

Germany - not Japan

 

England.


Seriously though we're actually getting quite a lot of sunshine lately. A photo of while I was up North in Swansea a week ago exploring the surroundings.

 

Spring in Alaska and far North America consists of ice “breakup” and the mud season. We then seem to instantly enter into summer.

The picture below is of a past Tanana River ice breakup. It's the earliest breakup this year out of 102 years of record keeping, April 14. Here's a link to the interesting contest we call the Nenana Ice Classic where the cash winner is the one guessing closest to the exact time the Tanana River ice officially begins moving downriver:

https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/201...n-setting-record-for-earliest-river-break-up/



See this link for near real-time updates from the National Weather Service to see the break up of ice on major Alaskan rivers:

https://www.weather.gov/aprfc/breakupMap

A bit south and higher in the mountains there is fun sliding on snow shoots:


And then here's another perspective of an Alaska breakup:



Breakup and snow melt off is in progress with the mud season emerging. "Leaf out" is several weeks away. Typically, leaf buds pop in early to mid-May. Spring Finally...well, I'll call it early thaw with spring soon to come.

Previous posts do inspire me right now to visit nice places where the blossoms and green of spring look wonderful.

 

With spring comes yard work, and with yard work comes exposure, and with exposure comes fire...

All was not lost, I was wearing a watch

 

Around my town we have been having a lot of trouble with flooding , it happened last year and a lot of people hoped it would not happen for a few years, and it's happening again but even worse,

 

Yeah, but, there's no such thing as Global warming... right?

 

That’s awful. Good luck, hopefully the water will dissipate soon.

 

Sorry to hear that. Flooding is not fun. Very destructive and messy. I hope your house escaped.

 

Yes spring in the desert, almost a 100 yesterday. Can’t wait till I retire to move from this.

 

I have always been amazed how fast nature turns green and lush around here, I drive this area from/to work everyday and is a pleasure to watch how quickly the forest transforms...

Pic taken yesterday, 72F !

 

We only have buds on our trees at this point, if that. We have one tree out front that buds first every year, and it's my yearly spring ritual to stand under it the first warm day and just listen...

The bees take huge advantage of this first food source after a long winter, so I just stand there surrounded by the buzzing bees...it's wonderful to hear. Late last week was the first time it happened, and since then we've had mostly rainy days, so maybe today I'll go out again and see if they are back...

This might be the last year to have all those bees around, since the large fields behind us are being developed for more housing...with less habitat and food around, I do wonder if I'll hear them at all next spring...

 

First lawn-mowing today.

 

Bad phone camera, but this is what Spring looks like in my backyard.

 

Man, I love spring. Those are some beautiful and stout-looking trees. Firs or other?

 

Sequoia sempervirons the Coast Redwood. These are just babies though, they get much bigger!

Notice the person in red to the right of the tree.