Blog – Page 202 – Ellis Hollow

Jeepers creepers it’s the return of the peepers

It hit 64 F today and tonight the spring peepers (Pseudacris crucifer) are singing again for the first time this year. You can listen to them here.

Our property borders on (heck, it extends into) a major wetland. And when the peepers really crank it up the noise is so loud as to make you dazed and confused. Folks will actually pull over on the side of the road when the peepers at their peak and listen for as long as they can take it.

It’s supposed to be in the 50s tomorrow and then we’re expecting a week when it doesn’t get out of the 30s. That’s not great for maximum volume. Hopefully it will warm up nicely after that and the peepers can crank it up to 11.

More bee coverage on DailyKos

See this ‘recommended diary’: This is the most important underreported story (w/poll).

[Colony collapse disorder] needs to get immediate attention, and it should get that attention ahead of Iraq, global warming and every other issue, because if the bees die off, we won’t be far behind.

The diary provides a nice round-up of article links (mostly the second-round of local coverage of the problem). I report this in a similar vein to Sports Illustrated covering global warming.

DailyKos is a political blog. There is some environmental coverage from time to time (especially global warming). But 90 percent of it is inside the Beltway and local netroots political organizing stuff. To make the recommended diary list requires the votes of your fellow readers at the site.

Bottomline is: At least among lefty bloggers, this is an issue that has some staying power — even in the face of all the other issues we face.

2007 Skunk Cabbage Run

The first Sunday of April every year, the Skunk Cabbage Road Race runs right by our front door. How can you not love a race named for an early-flowering native that smells like my garden sneakers in August.

Looking back at the weather records, it was one of the warmer runs since we moved here in 1999. The temp peaked at 47 F, second only to last year’s 52. (In 2002, the high was only 32.) Today it was in the 60s, but snow is forecast for the end of the week. Such is April, the cruelest month in these parts.

Update: [4/4/07] Graham blogs today about skunk cabbage over at Transatlantic Plantsman.

Frosted Iris reticulata

Last Friday, it got down into the lower 20s (not unusual this time of the year). I noticed a very interesting frost on the patch of Iris reticulata I’ve been photographing a lot lately.

On closer inspection (click on the image for an even closer look), I noticed that the frost crystals were — I don’t know — columnar in shape? Any folks into crystals out there?

What I really love about all these early flowers is how easily they shake off a frost that in fall turns so many plants to mush.

Sunday music: Helsinki Complaints Choir

There are times I wish my ancestors had stayed in Scandinavia where the summers are too short and the winter nights too long. I take some comfort in knowing that we share some of life’s existential problems with others in the developed world.

It’s not fair.