I thought I might find several shades of spring green on the trees up at the Beaver Brook Natural Area but no, most of the trees were still wearing just buds. That wasn’t too much of a disappointment really, because there would still be astounding natural beauty to see here even … | Continue reading
Bud break is a very special time on this blog and I try to show as much of it as I can each spring as trees wake up. These are horse chestnut leaves which had just opened out of a thumb size bud, and if you look closely you can see the grape like cluster […] | Continue reading
Bluets have appeared so the game is on. The game is, how long will it take to find the darkest, bluest bluets? Some are almost white and others are a rich, dark blue but there are many millions of them and the trick is finding them. I don’t run around looking for bluets; when I [ … | Continue reading
Last week (4/9 – 4/14) we had several wet days. Since what we saw were showers rather than steady rain, I thought I might have a chance to get some photos of what happens here on showery days. The hellebore are still going strong. I think they’re doing better this year than I’ve … | Continue reading
More glory of the snow flowers have come along. This is another under used spring flowering bulb that I can find only in one spot in a local park. I think it must be another of those flowers that people simply aren’t aware of. It’s too bad we don’t have a public garden here where … | Continue reading
As this photo shows the crocuses have recovered beautifully from the snowstorm I showed in the last post. Spring flowers look delicate but they’re built for snow and cold. April is when the spring ephemeral wildflowers really get going so there will be lots to see this month, bot … | Continue reading
According to the folks at the National Weather Service 2.7 inches of snow fell in Keene last weekend. That was then packed down by all the rain that followed, and then all of that froze solid over night so there was no shoveling it until the next day. I had to wait until the sun … | Continue reading
We’ve had a cool, showery week and that has slowed down a lot of the flowers. Since they were really blooming about two weeks early anyway, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The weathervane at the local college on this day was showing stiff winds out of the east-northeast, whic … | Continue reading
The biggest surprise this week was finding beautiful spring beauty flowers in bloom a full two weeks ahead of the earliest date I had ever seen them, which was April first. The most beautiful things in nature are almost always right there in plain sight but to find them we have t … | Continue reading
Anyone who has spent time in nature knows that spring doesn’t happen on a certain calendar day. Spring happens when everything seems to just come together one day. The breeze is warmer, the sunshine is warmer, all the birds are singing, insects appear, and people are smiling for … | Continue reading
Spring is happening slowly again after a warm spell two weeks or so ago that got everything moving quickly. I saw maple sap flowing a couple of weeks ago but they just put out the sap buckets this past week. Warm days and cold nights are what keeps the sap flowing so hopefully it … | Continue reading
Right after I told you in that last post that crows flew away as soon as I pointed anything at them, this one landed in a tree right above me and posed for as many photos as I wanted to take. Even so I never did get a good one, but this reminded me once […] | Continue reading
Shortly after I clicked “publish” on the last post I happened to see this out of the corner of my eye while I was driving by. All the trees and the bare granite summit on Mount Monadnock had a frosting of wet snow and it was beautiful. I quickly turned around and found a place [… … | Continue reading
We’ve had another snowstorm since our last visit but unlike what we’ve had so far this year this one was heavy and wet. This kind of pasty snow sticks to everything, as can be seen in the above shot of Mount Caesar in Swanzey. It is the most beautiful of all the different types o … | Continue reading
I had an idea that I’d do a post about puddle ice because thanks to Doreen, who commented on the last post, a mystery I’ve wondered about for most of my life has been solved. It concerns the wave like lines in puddle ice, and it turns out they have nothing to do with waves; […] | Continue reading
Hello again everyone. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and are having a Happy New Year. I thought I’d better do a post and show you the first real snow of the year, which fell on January 7th. I say it’s the first real snow because we’ve had a dusting and a nuisance […] | Continue reading
I hope everyone will have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. And a Happy Hanukkah too! May you walk gently through the world and know its beauty all the days of your life. ~Apache Blessing Thanks for stopping in. | Continue reading
This post completes the circular story of the wetlands for this year. We’ve seen the beautiful trout lilies and other wildflowers of spring, the birds, insects and animals of summer, and the beautiful colors of fall. Now we see winter but before we know it, it will be time to sho … | Continue reading
I’d heard rumors about more rail trail improvements going on here and there, so I thought I’d go and see how they were coming along. This trail, for local people who’d like to follow it, runs between the Ashuelot River and Eaton Road in Swanzey. I had also heard that there were a … | Continue reading
Last Monday I felt that burst of love for the out of doors that I always feel at this time of year, coming in the form of what is known here as spring fever. It’s love, happiness, and a bit of madness all rolled into one, and it makes me ache to be outside. It […] | Continue reading