Yes, in Michigan. In March. The earliest spears….

Just two days ago, I saw this fine asparagi (probably not the correct fake-Latin ending) crowning. And look at it now!

And here’s the kicker: I found another specimen that’s about an inch taller.

Good eating awaits!

In an effort to reduce my ignorance a teensy bit, I checked the Wisdom of WikiPee on forsythia…and learned that the petals “become pendant in rainy weather thus shielding the reproductive parts“—just as you see in this picture taken during a light sprinkle.

Raspberry cane sporting an…accoutrement.

Did more raspberry cane removal. Not quite finished because I switched to the asparagus bed. Did find a this-year’s-asparagus crowning the soil.

Can you say “spring!”?

Just four days ago, on the 12th, I posted a photo of the lilac, with dry, winter branches. Just look at them now!

And the caption: “Season’s turning: mostly not yet”—I’m into irony?? Is it really MARCH? In MICHIGAN?

Both thermometers reported that temps topped 80°F today; something’s not right (this is MARCH)! I found it just too hot to finish the raspberries…(lazy me).

So glad there’re leftovers in the fridge….

Lilacs in winter mode.

We basked in the sun again! Lilacs are early-bloomers, but there’s no sense of that today, even though the grass is greening and I saw a yard-full of delicate snowdrops on Saturday.

The pondlet’s (yes, decaying) ice rim is yesterday’s news. Today’s temps wiped it out. What the stats from the garage do not show is that all day it’s been WINDY. Not breezy, not some wind. Flat out windy.

This means that Ma Nature has increased tomorrow’s chore list: branch patrol. A new one came down in the last hour from the shade tree out back. Just a small branch this time; the last one I remember was at least 10 inches across at the base.

The shedding tree is a small-thorned variety of Gleditsia triacanthos I know as a moraine locust. Here’s an interesting document dating to May 1953 announcing the moraine variety…. The Professor O’Rourke of Michigan State College mentioned on the second page (the article’s page 80) was a buddy of The Botanist’s.

I gotta give C credit; it was her idea to photograph this half-peeled pineapple (Ananas comosus) with the coalesced berries exposed.

This is the power of weeds*; on this day, with temps reaching 51°F, one weed species (unknown to me) managed to bloom amongst the strawberry plants.

I couldn’t decide between the flower close-up (not a good photo) and the landscape (showing sky drama, but not a particularly good photo, either), for reasons that I cannot pin down. Hence, today is twofer day, and scale once again butts into my blog.

Not an hour after I snapped the flower photo, the sky became horizontally bisected; subsequently, the grey reigned and the sun abandoned us.

* Weeds are a concept, more than anything; they are culturally (socially) defined. They are plants, yes, and both species and individual specimens, that tend to grow where people don’t want them. Many people associate weeds with invaders of horticultural/farm plots, fields, and beds. But weeds can also be in your dooryard. So, I wonder if the concept of weeds originated with both sedentism and agriculture? Or just one of the two? Hmmm (meaning unanswerable).