Although portions of Detroit and its suburbs are returning to nature (well, becoming fields again—and not only brownfields), this area remains (more or less) chipper! Elmore Leonard is one of this region’s bright spots, and FX’s new series “Justified” is adapted from his short story “Fire in the Hole.”

Realizing we had an afternoon devoid of chores, we headed off to do that Michigan thing (okay, and elsewhere)—take a drive! Maybe it had more of a Michigan twist because big flakes of snow filled the air. Yet, the roads were merely wet since the temps were above freezing.

We thought this Sandhill Crane (Grus canadensis) was our most exciting find, although we enjoyed the whole darned wander to Yankee Springs….

Curious about Vermontville? Read a bit about this small town famous for its springtime Maple Syrup Festival.

I have yet to mention that when we were about fifteen miles short of our Midwestern destination on St. Paddy’s Day we had a deer jump into the side of our dear Prius. Neither of us look forward to dealing with insurance (or not?), the body shop, etc.

Thankfully, no broken glass or sprung airbags—just dents on the right side of the car and a missing rear-view mirror—that we really miss!

Sad that it happened….

We very much enjoyed a yard-tour in the sun, although most of the plants reveal that spring is merely on the cusp of arriving.

Meteorologists predict we should await more frozen precip in the near future….

Seems weird to salute a dead saint with green beer. The beer part makes sense (alcohol is pretty darned festive!), but the green part is idiosyncratic—for sure!

Or otherworldly?

One almond tree, now planted…been a long time since I planted a tree….

It replaces an oak that was one small portion of the capital improvements Atlanta underwent prior to the Olympics. That tree was just coming into its own, and was de-branched (and would never have recovered and looked good) by the oak that took out one corner of the house in May 2008 (longer story here).

Now we water weekly, and wait….

First daffodils (at a neighbors’ in a protected place).

I see on our census form, which arrived today, that we are to predict the future—that is, how many people will be sheltering in our house on April Fool’s Day. Maybe we’re supposed to wait, but I’m guessing the mailing schedule people have no idea how much semi-junque mail piles up at this house, so that within about three days the form will be deeply buried beneath other need-to-do-something-with-this papers.

We got a lot of laughs out of these candles that relit time and time again!

These are architectural details decorating the patio posts of a restaurant fronting the street in our neighborhood near the post office. (How many phrases is that?)

I’ve noticed that the light comes early in the morning, and I’m going to miss it, probably for weeks. We’ll see if I experience the discombobulation I usually do in the wake of the time change….

Hail, hail…. Excitement surrounded us today…. (Since there’s no scale, those are roughly marble-sized, or musket-ball sized.)

Today’s the day for early deciders to plunk down their credit cards and order a TD—stands for “that device,” my now-lame attempt at avoiding a problematic Apple product name (shhhh—iPad). Apparently, Apple had so many orders that briefly it became our country’s third largest company, on the basis of market capitalization (after Exxon & The Empire of Bill Gates).

Okay, yes, we plunked!