Monday Forest photo: April 16, 2012

Scarlet Cup mushroom

Monday Forest photo: April 9, 2012

1:00pm 10C overcast

It's an ordinary April day for once. Breezy and threatening rain and not too warm or cold. Things are happening here in Monday Forest, even though you have to look closely still. The wild leeks are up and growing like crazy everywhere, and there are lots of little miscellaneous green things popping up. We're two weeks ahead of last year, but I guess that's no surprise after the incredibly warm March.

Trout Lilies are up.

I found lots of unopened Round Leaf Hepatica. Last year, there didn't seem to be so many, only scattered individuals, rather than the patch of a dozen or so I saw today.

Monday Forest photo: April 2, 2012

4:00pm 10C clear

Ahhh spring.

The wild leeks are up! This is the season of munching on leek leaves while walking. I come back every day with garlic breath.

Monday Forest photo: March 26, 2012

3:40pm -1C clear

Well, Mother Nature does have a way of bringing one back down to earth pretty severely. After last week's glorious summer weather, we're back to below seasonal temperatures accompanied by a strong north wind. I've got the waaaay early garlic and asparagus all mulched and protected from marauding chickens (they can't resist scratching in straw) so hopefully they will survive their optimistic foray into early spring.

This poor toad was on the trail a few days ago when the temperature was up in the twenties. He was so still I thought he was dead, but I didn't do a full investigation to be sure.

Monday Forest photo: March 19, 2012

11:00am 18C sunny

 So sorry about the missing month of Monday Forest. I did take pictures, and I'll probably post them for continuity's sake sometime. We've gone from winter to summer and it isn't even officially spring until tomorrow. I read in the paper that some expert is calling this stretch of hot weather (mid twenties in March!) a 1 in a 1000 year event. Yesterday, the record high temperature was broken by 9 degrees C and there's warmer for later on this week. In fact, the forecast low for Wednesday night is higher than the previous record high. This weather is impossible not to enjoy at this time of year (well, any time of year) but it's a little like how I imagine it feels to live the high life on stolen loot. In this case, we've stolen our kids' climate.

The forest floor is coming to life even though only yesterday there was still snow covering more than half of it. I don't know what this hairy-tongued thing is.

For comparison, this picture was taken last week, when the temperature got up to a whopping 12C. This is what kids in Canada do - on the first nice day they put on shorts, find a patch of bare ground and skype with their friends on their mom's laptop. With chickens. Just like when I was a kid. Except for the skype and laptop and chickens. More like transistor radio and book, but still.

Monday Forest photo: February 13, 2012

12:00pm 1C sunny

Today was another beautiful sunny day. In spite of the mild temperatures we've had, we've somehow been fortunate enough to keep our snow and at least the appearance of winter. You don't have to travel far from here to run right out of snow. It's a rather dramatic demonstration of the effect of a very modest increase in temperature. 

Oh, and Meg is hiding in the picture this week.

We've had some spectacularly clear skies recently.

Monday Forest photo: February 6, 2012

2:00pm 5C sunny

 Oh February sun, you are a tease. You touch my face with your warm rays, but we both know it won't last. Today was an exercise in living in the moment. The pleasure of the fine weather was tempered by hearing on the radio later that the temperature was a record high for the day. Sigh.

The pond was in fine shape for a skate before it warmed up above freezing this morning.

The chickens enjoyed the sun, but were highly suspicious of the snow. A couple of them did a hop, skip and jump (with flapping) to roost on a log closer to the house, but mostly, they wait for spring.