From snow to blooms....

 April 14, 2025

 This was the morning of April 8....

And this, a previously bare road, on my afternoon walk.

Trail camera pictures of the deer moving through, before the snow...

During,

and a picture off of the same camera...after.

It was quite a dumping, combined with strong winds. It took a few days to melt away, as temperatures stayed in single digits, but now they are on the upswing. This past weekend, the mercury reached 15C (59F) and higher, with lovely sunshine. That fresh snow then melted rapidly, and now the residual snow from the winter on north facing places, and in the bush, is shrinking visibly from one day to the next. 

The Eastern Phoebe arrived just before the snow, and obviously weathered it well, as he has claimed his perch on the barn roof and is serenading regularly. Song Sparrows have just arrived, and yesterday morning we had a small flight of Evening Grosbeaks show up at the feeders. On Thursday evening at dusk, we heard the first American Woodcock at the edge of the clearing, setting up his display stage.

As for the deer, the migration back to their summer grounds is on with a vengeance. The road up the hill is absolutely riddled with tracks, and they are appearing morning and evening, out grazing on the grass of the clearing, which has started to actually look just a tad green. We took a walk through a neighbour's oak bush yesterday, and the deer have been scuffling the leaves up all around the bases of the trees, hungrily hunting for acorns from last fall.

This is a picture of the emerging tulip shoots....the deer found them before they were barely an inch out of the soil. We've since installed a fence around that flower bed and are seriously contemplating setting up an electric fence to encircle the food gardens this year.

Despite their propensity for wreaking havoc on my gardens, they are such graceful creatures.

A moose came through by a camera late last week. The amount of snow in the bush has diminished greatly, even since this recent picture.

Our ravens cruise over the 'treat rock' daily, checking to see if we have left out something for them. Here one of them has snagged a piece of chicken skin, probably there is a nest somewhere with hungry fledglings.

Garlic is up.

Pussy willows are fat and furry.

Now with rain in the forecast, things should really take off.