As the snow retreats (lotsa pix)

I love the frenzy of flowers in late spring/early summer.  And the garden here peaks in September when the shear mass of plant  material is nearly overwhelming.  But nothing beats seeing what pops up as the snow retreats.

We hit 63 yesterday and today, and had a little rain today.  The snow has retreated quickly, and we had a nice blanket of ‘melting snow fog’ this afternoon.  (Click on images for larger view.)

snow fog

The rain and melting snow has our little creek up over it’s banks.

over the banks

The snow pealed back to reveil Eranthis (winter aconite) in full flower.

Eranthis

The hard cyclamens are also looking good and flowering within a day of seeing the sun.

cyclamens

cyclamens

And the Hellebores are getting off to a good start …

Hellebores

I’m just as excited to see vegetation that amazingly survives (if not actually grows) under the snow, like these Digitalis ferruginea

Digitalis ferruginea

Verbascum

Verbascum

Lamium

Lamium

… and this viny groundcover that’s taking over the patio.

groundcover

Best picture of the batch: This Verbascum has been nibbled on a bit. I wonder by what?

verbascum and bunny turds

Snowdrops, iris and other goodies are coming on, too. More pix from the compressed spring coming soon.

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When Sports Illustrated warns about global warming …

SI cover… maybe it’s time to start doing something about it.

I read SI religiously from age 8 until I was into my 40s — first for the pictures of my favorite quarterbacks, later for the swimsuit issues, and then one day I came to realize that SI has just about the highest quality writing and photography of almost any periodical — jock or non-jock.

I kept getting it long after I stopped reading the timely sports articles because the ‘off-topic’ articles were long and meaty and a joy to read.

I know most readers skip right over them.  But even if they only get to the second paragraph  of this cover story, they’ll get the message:

Global warming is not coming; it is here. Greenhouse gases — most notably carbon dioxide produced by burning coal, oil and gas — are trapping solar heat that once escaped from the Earth’s atmosphere. As temperatures around the globe increase, oceans are warming, fields are drying up, snow is melting, more rain is falling, and sea levels are rising.

I’ve seen An Inconvenient Truth and read about climate change from political and environmental perspectives. But it was fun to see how SI put a sports spin on the subject. One of the examples they provided about how jocks are taking action:

Two years ago the men’s lacrosse team at Middlebury College calculated its “carbon footprint” (the amount of global-warming carbon dioxide its daily activities generated) and raised money to purchase enough renewable-energy credits (investments in wind power) to offset those emissions. The team thereby became carbon-neutral — a status also claimed by last summer’s soccer World Cup in Germany, cycling’s Team Clif Bar Midwest and the Vermont Frost Heaves, this writer’s American Basketball Association team, which rides in a biodiesel-powered bus.

Long-time activist and author Bill McKibben (The End of Nature) is quoted in several places. My favorite:

We’re still so used to the idea that we can deal with the forces of nature that we think nothing of naming our teams Hurricanes and Cyclones. In 10 years, that will be like calling a team the Plagues.”

Global warming in SI? I can’t help but think that we’re near the 100th monkey on this issue.

Update: [3/13/2007] Michael Shaw over at Bag News Notes (he analyzes media images) blogged about the cover, drawing Katina parallels.

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Winter’s back broken

-2F this morning.  About 6 degrees shy of the record, but plenty cold.  It’s easier to take this time of the year knowing that we’ve got 40s coming this weekend and 50s next week.

I predicted we’d pay for the warm early winter we had. But in all fairness, I also predicted that we’d seen the last of the below-zero temperature last time we bottomed out.

It should make for a compressed spring where all the early flowers  cram their show into a short period of time.

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BREAKING: Fish alive!

Koi, Shubunkin

With temps up in the 40s yesterday and some sun in the afternoon, the ice cleared from the water garden. Because it’s spring-fed, it’s late to ice over and quick to melt. In it’s short life, I’ve never had to worry much about fish winterkilling. Still, it’s always a relief to see that the koi, shubunkins, goldfish, and minnows (goodness knows where they came from) are fine — if a little on the skinny side.

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