For the Beauty of the Earth

Today, I am going to write about a phenomenon going on in my neck of the woods. As I've mentioned in earlier posts, we haven't really had a winter this year. Now sometimes we have milder winters, but we have a winter. This year, we didn't ever get winter. Starting in December, it's been perpetual Spring: brown, muddy, warmish, with occasional bouts of snow that didn't last 1 day. I'd say we got 5 inches of snow all winter (lots of rain though), and those 5 inches came 1 at a time, each melting away the day after (or the day of) the snowfall. It's been absolutely crazy.

Not surprisingly, the plants are confused. Starting about 1 week ago, the trees and flowers started budding:

The Forsythia came first:

And with the temperatures soaring into the 80's (yes, the 80's, you read that right, it was 80 degrees on March 19-20th), the bloom didn't take long, and just about everything is in full bloom  now.

 

 

Look at those buds! They're not being shy. Maybe they know something I don't know, but I'd be worried about another frost. It is March, after all. Check out March last year.  Crazy difference, huh?!

Our favorite ice cream shop opened, so we christened the early Spring with Toad's Ice Cream. 

 

It's called Toads Too because the original Toad's (across the road) is a restaurant. It's by far my favorite ice cream shop.  Check out the options!

Those are the soft serve options. Amazing! Usually all an ice cream place has is vanilla, chocolate, and twist. Not at Toad's! The flavors are endless, because you can combine them: Almond Butterscotch, Cranberry Egg Nog, Orange Blueberry. And the flavors are great too! My favorite is grape, it tastes so much like Concord Grapes. It's like eating autumn!

Brian and I shared a Black Raspberry. It was awesome. 

It's cooled down a bit since last week, but the nice, sunny weather continues. Today it's in the forties. On Sunday someone at church was giving away Strawberry plants. They were pretty beat up, but I took a bunch. 

I planted them right away in soil from last year's raised beds.  The weather's unpredictable, but hopefully they live!

We can't keep them inside, so they're on our porch under the overhang. That's not enough to combat cold nights, so I covered them:

It's gotten colder since last week, and we've had a couple of nights below freezing, but they're doing ok so far! They are a spring plant, so I'm hoping they'll fare well...we'll see. Maybe I'll have strawberries this year! I've never tried growing them before, so I feel like a novice, but plants are resilient, so I'm relying on the power of nature here to make the most of this extraordinarily early Spring.