The Backyard Science group regularly features the Daily Bucket. Anyone can note any observations you have made of the world around you. Insects, weather, meteorites, climate, birds, flowers and anything natural or unusual are worthy additions to the Bucket and its comments. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located. Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the patterns that are quietly unwinding around us.
Late every year, when the snow swirls and the mercury dives towards what feels like absolute zero, some of us may wonder if winter will ever end. How can anything possible survive outside in this bitter cold and wind, I cannot help but think.
Yet every year, many valiant plants battle their way to the surface and ecstatically produce buds. Their optimism exceeds my own. Please proceed below the tangled arborvitae roots for some pictorial evidence.
Here's an easy one, the Hellaborus. I feel like I am hallucinating every Spring, when these guys bloom before the snow's done melting, in the darkest corner of the yard.
This can't possibly be the first water lily of the year, but it's trying.
This strawberry's impatient, it has to grow swiftly. It only has 3 months to produce fruit on schedule to earn its nickname "June berries."
I'm happy to see this heritage raspberry survived my replanting effort. The robins are also eyeing its progress. Fresh berries are a welcome break from months of worms.
We've all had plants that we've patted into fecund earth, fertilized and watered, sang to and prayed over, that died on us abruptly and remorselessly. Meanwhile, the potatoes that we forgot about in the garage have sprouted and grow without any aid.
Now it's your turn for a comment on the goings-on in your corner of the earth.
"Green Diary Rescue" is Back!
After a hiatus of over 1 1/2 years, Meteor Blades has revived his excellent series. As MB explained, this weekly diary is a "round-up with excerpts and links... of the hard work so many Kossacks put into bringing matters of environmental concern to the community... I'll be starting out with some commentary of my own on an issue related to the environment, a word I take in its broadest meaning."
"Green Diary Rescue" will be posted every Saturday at 1:00 pm Pacific Time on the Daily Kos front page. Be sure to recommend and comment in the diary.
1:51 PM PT: 1:49 PST