Two or three days of temperatures in the 40’s and those of us here in Michigan think that winter is over.  Even those of us that have lived here our whole (lengthy) lives think that we are out of the woods.  People were walking around campus yesterday without coats, some in shorts, a few even in flip flops.  Really.  You’d think we were all headed to the beach.

Katie the dog and I made our first around the yard inspection today, poking into gardens long asleep, checking under rotting leaves for any signs of new life.  Mostly it seems that the weeds are doing really well.  I did see a tiny tip of one daffodil, the only one of a few hundred that I’ve planted over the years, breaking through the soil.  The pussy-willow bush has begun to open its buds, way up at the top of the shrub-grown-tree, too high for me to clip a few for inside.  It’s evident that the deer have been using my back yard for a lunch salad bar throughout the winter.  Later on we’ll see what has survived them.

I challenged my sister in New Jersey to a forsythia race last week.   We were both supposed to cut some forsythia branches and bring them inside to bloom.  Of course I forgot I had challenged her.  So today I need to go out and cut some, I’m already about a week behind, and she’s living in a zone warmer than me!  I hope I have highly motivated forsythia that can make up for lost time.

So there’s the news from here for today.  I have a paper to write, and of course that blasted web class homework to do.  But there’s a red winged blackbird on my feeder (another sign that spring is really here) and the sun is out and I just want to enjoy the spring.  Because I know that there just may be one more snowstorm waiting in the wings for those of us that are silly enough to think we are out of the woods here in Michigan!