Coming right along.

Outside my kitchen window, the mock orange and the hydrangea show off new leaves; beside the carport, the perfume of purple hyacinths greets me and the bleeding hearts, tall now, have new flower buds. Inside, a column of tiny ants marches from a crack in the baseboard, and climbs into the cat's dish. Spring is officially here.

I checked out Tyee Spit, hoping for Indian-plum flowers. Not yet; not even buds so far. But there are others:

Oregon grape, Mahonia nervosa.

Pussywillows, Salix sp.

Purple dead nettle, Lamium purpureum. "Dead", because it doesn't sting. A member of the mint family.

Coming right along.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Afuera de mi ventana, las hortensias y el filadelfo (Philadelphus sp.) estrenan hojas nuevas; al lado de la cochera, el perfume de los jacintos morados llena el aire y en los corazones sangrantes (Lampnocapnos sp.), ya grandes, las primeras flores empiezan a abrirse. Y en casa, una columna de hormiguitas sale marchando de una grieta en el  rodapié y se interna en el tazón de la gata. Es oficial; estamos en primavera.

Fui a Tyee Spit, en busca de las flores de "Ciruelo de indio", Oemleria cerasiformis, uno de los primeros arbustos en florecer; pero no, ni siquiera encontré botones. Pero había otras flores:

Fotos:

1. Uva de Oregon, Mahonia nervosa. Produce bayas moradas, buenas para jaleas.
2. Las flores de sauce.
3. Ortiga muerta purpúrea, Lamium purpureum. "Muerta" porque no irrita la piel, como lo hacen las ortigas "verdaderas". Pertenece a la familia de las mentas, o yerbabuenas.

Suficiente para ahora.

Spring on the hard drive

It's April and my hyacinths are perfuming the entryway, the tulips are almost ready to open, the forsythia is dropping yellow petals on the lawn, and the first hairy cat's ear (grrrr!) has dug itself in. (And I dug it out.) There are bluebells on the way, and mock orange, and Dutchman's breeches. I've been out cleaning up, trimming the hydrangea and weeding around the hollyhocks. Ah, spring!

And on my hard drive, I've been sorting spring flowers from years gone by. Here are a few of them; most I'd never finished processing.

Indian plum, aka osoberry. A welcome native.

Humble wood violets.

Back in 2009, in a patch of blackberry canes and nettles at Terra Nova, we found these snowflake flowers.

Leucojum sp.

The site had been, long ago, a homestead; there were daffodils and old fruit trees. These had been in someone's garden before the blackberries moved in.

Aka dewdrop

Lily of the valley. From my old garden in Delta.

Half hidden in the shade at the edge of the woods at Woodhus Creek, vanillaleaf in bloom. The flowers don't last long, but the drying leaves are fragrant all summer.

And it wouldn't be spring without crocuses, would it?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ya estamos a medio abril, y mis jacintos están derramando su perfume frente a mi puerta. Los tulipanes tienen grandes botones, rojos y amarillos; la forsitia cubre el pasto de pétalos amarillos; y las primeras "orejas peludas de gato", una hierba invasiva y nociva, se han establecido en el césped. (Y ya las arranqué.) Hay campanillas, naranja falsa (Philadelphus sp.), y Dicentra, todavía sin flores. He estado podando las hortensias, sacando hierbas malas de entre las malvas locas, y haciendo limpieza general. ¡Ah, la primavera!

Y regresando a la casa y la computadora, he estado revisando fotos viejas de flores primaverales. Aquí hay algunas que encontré, casi todas del mes de abril, pero en años anteriores.

1. Oemleria cerasiformes, llamada Ciruela India, o también frutilla de osos.
2. Violeta nativa
3. y 4.  Encontramos esta planta bajo un lío de zarzamora. Se llama "copo de nieve".
5. Lirio del valle, de mi jardín en Delta.
6. "Hoja de vainilla", una planta nativa del bosque. Las flores caen pronto, pero las hojas siguen aromáticas todo el verano.
7. Y no hay primavera sin crocus.

Wings like petals

Better late than never: it's almost June, and the weather gods think it's summer. Everything is in bloom. The streets are lined with flowers, red, pink, yellow, lilac, white. And I'm still processing photos from when it was still spring, three weeks ago.

The indian plum had just burst into flower at Oyster Bay.

And they had company.

I didn't see them at first; the two (and a head) flies on these flowers have white wings that look almost like indian plum petals themselves.

Zooming in on that photo.

In another couple of photos, mostly out of focus, I could see that the flies have a striped abdomen, and, I think, reddish eyes.

Their friends and families were hanging out on the crabapple blossoms.

Five crabapple flowers, a dozen flies. That big monster hiding in the background is an ant; these flies are tiny! Three of them are nose down in the center of the first flower, as if drinking from a fountain. (Click to see the photo full size.)

Back to work: I've got some moss photos to crop and clean (sand on the lens) and a batch of wasp photos still in the camera. I'll catch up one of these days.

Fuzz, curls, and throat warmers

The wooden bridge over Bear Creek leads past mallards on rocks, salmonberry bushes (and once upon a time, past Devil's Club, but it is not a plant to be trusted where a curious child may reach out, all unknowing, to touch a pretty berry and be stabbed for his temerity) ... Where was I? Going into the native garden section of Bear Creek Park. It's a quiet, green tunnel through an evergreen forest, the sky hidden beyond the evergreens overhead, the only sound the trickle of the creek below the path, our way hedged with rhododendrons, salal, tall ferns, and Indian plum. At their feet, bleeding hearts and vanilla leaf make a green carpet.

Salal flowers, fuzzy and sticky.

Indian plum, ripening

Graceful curve of a fern tip

New fronds, unrolling

Newer still, all curled up

At the end of the trail, we cross the main path through the park, and enter the tall trees section. We were looking for owls here, where we'd seen a family long ago, and stumbled along the trail, craning our necks to look for round, fuzzy shadows in the deep, round, brown shadows of the trunks and branches far overhead. There were no owls, at least, no owls visible. But there was this:

Knitted tree scarf

Looks like someone had figured it was a cold winter, and the trees might catch sore throats.

A thoughtful touch, maybe?