Spring encounters

More images from my parents' yard.

This daffodil is one of my favorites. My mom planted a variety pack of bulbs last year, so some of these are surprises for them too.

Sunny little face

These photos from Thursday afternoon, March 22, while the earlier blooms are from Monday morning, March 19. Amazing what a few days of heat and a rainy day will do this time of year. I think the difference is most marked in the service berries and rhubarb.

Service berries, forsythia and (maybe) redbud

Service berry blossoms

Service berry blossoms
(note the small blue flowers in the groundcover)

 

Rhubarb hill

More daffodils, and some tulips.

Dainty white daffodils,
with pink tulips about to open behind them

Double daffodil

Springtime friends: tulips and daffodils

Not sure why I'm obsessed with the liverwort. ("Or some kind of wort," my mother said.") I love the spotted leaves and the pretty little blossoms that look pinkish-purple and then blue. I feel like I'm in the springtime woods, finding them in a shady glen. And that something so pretty and delicate has such a gross, funny name helps my affection.

Liverwort

Liverwort

Liverwort

Rhododendron

Another pretty little plant with delicate blue blooms

And now... for the slugs...

I love my parents for inspiring in me a love of and fascination with the natural world and her creatures. And I appreciate my mom for not being a squeamish girly girl when it comes to bugs and slithery critters.

So, walking home from the train Friday night, I noticed slugs on the sidewalk. They had slid their way out of the rain-wet grass and were having a walk-about. Well, slide-about.

Fascinating to see slug slime paths like contrails from an airplane

Slug 1...

...and Slug 2...

...slide toward a
date with destiny...

meet...

...and slither on.

Hey, don't blame me, I'm just reporting the encounter. If it had been my story, it would have ended in the snail version of champagne and witty conversation.

My unearthly pink finger for scale with slug