A Few April Photos

Tamarack flowers

Last Years Tall Grasses on the Fence Line

New Trail

            OK, not too keen on this April snow. The weather stations are predicting 10 to 15 more cm later today. Hope they are wrong.  They missed the amount that they predicted yesterday. We got a lot less.

            Anyway, the snow gives a new look to the new trail I am in the process of constructing. For several years I have been thinking about putting a trail on the south side of the little stream that runs along the north side of Fleur-Ange's p property to give access to the area. I had a trail on the other side of the stream but the one bridge fell apart and I never did get the second bridge put in so the ravine has been off bounds for a year or so except for rough bush walking. I hope I can finish this south side trail and keep it open this coming summer. So far I have cut through the raspberry canes, and small trees and trimmed up the larger trees to make a path and then dug into the side of the hill to make the path a bit more level. There is still more digging to do and I want to do another 30 metres at the west end of the ravine to get to that end of the property.

Variable Weather

            The variable weather  continues. I would call it strange but after what we went through during the  winter strange seems almost normal now. Ups and downs of temperatures have, apparently, been good for maple syrup however. I heard on the CBC yesterday that this is the best maple sap collecting season for years and that there is a surplus of sap to the point that the evaporators cannot keep up and some farmers are even selling the uncondenced sap as a spring drink.

            Oh yes, the snow this April 2nd morning . . .

            Two weeks ago, on my Friday flower walk I found a Round-leaved Hepatica in bloom. Sharp-leaved Hepatica are supposed to be earlier but, on the face of it, it appears that the hepaticas have not been reading the literature. 

                           

            This week, in spite of the cold weather and ice storm that happened last week, I anticipated seeing lots of hepatica on my walk but was disappointed. There were merely about a half dozen hepatica in bloom but at least a few of them were Sharp-leaved!