Monkeys and meerkats at London Zoo enjoy the annual Easter egg hunt pic.twitter.com/XqjgnnD4bd
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 2, 2021
Eggs, I was told, are connected to Easter because in northern temperate climes, it’s a cause for spring jubilation when lengthening days (and emerging greenery / insects) mean the hens start laying again.
From our own ever-reliable, omni-gifted Ozark Hillbilly:
A few pics, nothing poetical, not always pretty, but hopeful.
Early columbine:
Early Lenten rose:
First daffodils:
Early lilac:
Is it safe yet?…
Reborn clematis:
***********
Looking forward to more photos, as y’all get outside and get inspired!
What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?
Baud
Happy Easter to all who celebrate.
My condolences to all the rest who wanted to shop at Costco today.
Jeffery
A hard freeze in Philly Friday night/Saturday morning. The spectacular old tulip tree down the street that was about three quarters in bloom froze and the flowers turned brown. April is the cruelest month. So many things make it through the winter only to be felled in April.
Mary G
Happy Sunday, everybody!
OzarkHillbilly
@Jeffery: That above magnolia bud? Gone. She and all her sisters were truly gorgeous for about a week. Weds night the temps dropped to 25. That took care of that.
On the bright side, in this their third spring, my clematis have decided it is finally time to bloom. I have a plethora of buds upon them.
satby
Good morning and Happy Easter to those who celebrate it.
In my garden this week the earliest daffodils have started opening, the crocus are long gone but the blue squill are glorious, and the tulips, later daffs, and hyacinths are budding out to bloom later this week as we expect a few days of nice spring temperatures. After refusing to sprout in the chilly AeroGarden, a heat mat under it warmed temperatures up enough that I now have four impressive tomato starts and two that are lagging after being reseeded. I’m pulling out the biggest ones to transplant outside a month early under my mini-greenhouses today, and putting my new raised bed together on the south side of my house. Trips to get garden soils are on my list today too.
JanieM
The ice isn’t gone from the lake across the road from me, but that’s not at all unusual for this time of year. The snow is gone (although lord knows it can snow in April around here), but the biggest news is that last night I heard the first spring peepers.
It seems to be a pattern: a night will come along when I hear one or two, and then the next night they’re all awake and singing. I always wonder if the first two said, “Let me, let me, it’s my turn to go first this year” instead of “Yech, you do it, it’s too cold to go out there.”
Plus, I just got my first dozen eggs of the year from my friends in the next town over, whose hens have decided it’s spring. Even so, we’re six or seven weeks away from lilac buds like the one in OzarkHillbilly’s picture, above.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: I have a Jackmanji clematis that I brought from Chicago to Michigan, then again from MI to here. It hasn’t bloomed since the first move, but it grows very well, so I keep it and keep hoping. In the meantime, I keep trying to limit and eradicate the invasive sweet autumn clematis that ran riot while this property was vacant and has spread to the two neighboring yards.It’s hiding a lot of poison ivy mixed in it now.
Spanky
@JanieM:
First spring peepers is my favorite day of the new year.
Last August our cherry tree dropped all its leaves and went dormant. I had been spraying Roundup on wisteria underneath and feared the worst.
This week the tree is covered in blossoms, top to bottom.
Anyone know how to kill wisteria? I’ll never dig out all the runners.
satby
@Spanky: I managed to do it and not kill the surrounding vegitation by painting (with a paintbrush I could throw away later) full strength Triox Total Vegetation Killer on any new sprouts I saw. After cutting the large stems and painting them too, especially the fresh cuts. Took a couple of seasons, but I got rid of it all. I did the same thing on the ivy covered house here, after the guys I paid to pull it all off the house had left, I went around to every remaining stump and doused and painted them with Triox, and it hasn’t come back in three years. Edit: full strength and wear good thick rubber gloves.
JanieM
@Spanky: My favorite day is the day the ice is gone from the lake, defined for me as the day I can’t see any from my house (the north end of a lake that’s about 5 miles long north to south, but narrow). The first spring I was here, 1988, that day was April 12. It was always April (but no pattern to it) until about 2009, when it was March 25, then a couple of years later March 23. It has been back in April ever since, and at nearly the end of the month a couple of years ago. There are so many variables: sun, temp, wind, snow cover, how harsh the winter was in general, who knows what else.
So let’s just say the first peepers aren’t my favorite day, but they’re my favorite night…. ;-)
ETA: edited for punctuation and clarity.
OzarkHillbilly
Nuclear weapons come to mind, but I’m not sure they would work.
Scout211
Nice pics of the early blooms in your area, Ozark Hillbilly.
Re: chickens laying. My husband has been experimenting for the past few winters to get better production out of his chickens. He has lights set on a timer inside the chicken enclosure that ensures that the chickens are exposed to the requisite 15 hours of light per day to signal egg production. This year it worked okay. Production was down as usual, but we did get a few eggs each day all winter. Before installing the lights, egg production was zero most winter days.
We recently had some very warm days here in NorCal and the local news is full of dire predictions of a very bad fire season this year. The last snow pack test declared this season as the third driest winter season on record. This is not good.
satby
@satby: And I see Triox is no longer available, supplanted by Ortho Ground Clear. I’m sure any total vegetation killer would work the same, but I never spray it, I manually paint it on so I can control what it hits.
debbie
@Jeffery:
Damn freeze killed before the magnolias were fully open. ???
JPL
The sun is shining and it’s suppose to warm up today. I’ve been invited to the annual egg hunt at my son’s house. Last year I saw a video of a one year old having to pick up plastic eggs someone had placed in their yard. He did not look happy.
Ozark, thank you so much for the pictures. The dogwoods are blooming here, and it won’t be long before the knock out roses are.
Zinsky
Peace and blessings to all, this beautiful Easter morning! A little early to put too many calories into gardening in Minnesota yet! However, it is supposed to be mid-70s today and I am half-vaxxed and the rest of my family is fully vaxxed, so we can have a lovely outside family picnic!
I am grateful that a good, decent man – Joe Biden – is president and not a deviant, evil lying criminal career conman and grifter. Hallelujah!
Baud
@Zinsky:
I take that personally.
MattF
Legendary Hall of Fame baseball player Rube Waddell. Wrestled alligators in the off-season, loved puppies, firetrucks.
Baud
Nicole
@Baud:
2024 is coming, Baud. You have time.
#notalldeviantevilly ingcriminalcareer conmenandgrifters
JPL
@Zinsky: Enjoy your picnic.
Baud
@Nicole:
Thank you, Nicole. Please help me out by making a one-time, recurring contribution to my campaign.
Nicole
For the dog lovers, Slate had an interview up with a dog behaviorist about Major:
https://slate.com/technology/2021/04/major-biden-dog-aggression-president.html
It’s a good read, but I was kind of bummed to hear that Major may have been sent to a place that uses negative reinforcement. I don’t think that’s the right kind of training for a dog prone to fear aggression. Speaking as an owner of a dog that has fear aggression around other dogs, it’s all about behavior management. You’re not going to fix it 100%.
I liked reading the behaviorist talking about the importance of exercise; because that’s definitely true. Tired dog = good dog, in my experience.
Zinsky
@JPL: Thank you and thanks to Anne Laurie for the wonderful photos of the animals and Ozark’s flowers. Always uplifting and hopeful. We need it.
Kristine
About a third of my daffodils ? have opened. The Carnival di Nice tulips ? still have a ways to go—a rabbit nibbled the greenery but I sprayed repellent and sprinkled cayenne pepper powder and will keep doing that until I see blooms. Said rabbit also wiped out some lovely crocuses, but a second crop emerged and I treated them, too. So far, so good.
The Pink Fizz hellebore has exploded. The little forsythia is close to opening. Irises have sprouted. Monarda and sedum are at the cluster mound stage. The pussy willow flowers are opening and the bees are already arriving. It’s supposed to remain warmish (by NE Illinois standards) for the next week, week and a half, so fingers crossed that holds true and everything survives. We suffered through a cold snap last spring that hit buds pretty hard.
Immanentize
@Nicole:
You badly busted the margins. Can you still edit number 20?
Immanentize
Here near Boston, there are still a few crocus in the the yard (how do they get there?) Daffodils are just blooming and the tulips are leafing out. My forsythia are beautiful burning bushes of yellow fire for Easter. I let them get unruly and grow long spears which I cut for a tall vase inside.
Inside, my tomato, African Violet and columbine are growing well in my toilet paper tube seeders. Chives are being slow to germinate. I am really looking forward to gardening, but I haven’t pulled the tiller out of the shed yet….
Mousebumples
Good day for yard work yesterday! Pulled out some dead stuff, scratched myself up on my raspberry bushes (with gloves and a sweatshirt on!), saw the end of my crocuses and the greens for daffodils and lilies, though there’s no blooms yet.
Need to get more mulch, so that may be next weekend’s plan – weather depending.
debbie
@Baud:
Great example of the ever-changing English language.
zhena gogolia
Happy Easter. It doesn’t feel like Easter this year, because our interim minister did nothing for Good Friday. Zip. Not even a link to somebody else’s service.
Having our minister bail on us in the middle of Covid has really damaged us. I’m not sure we’re going to survive it.
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
I just noticed the church parking lot next door is more crowded than it’s been since last March’s shutdown.
Immanentize
@Baud: food for thought:
Good bye flowers! Welcome back ferns!
Nicole
@Immanentize: Nuts; that’s weird. I did the comment on laptop, where it looks right, and then after reading your comment went and looked on my phone, and it didn’t affect the layout of the comments- I had to slide the screen over to see the end of the hash tag line, but the comments above and below are formatted properly. Clearly something different is happening on your (and probabaly others’) device(s). Le sigh. I did not see your comment until after the editing period had passed.
True story: I spent the past several months thinking there was some secret cool thing some balloon-juice commenters were doing, what with leaving the “y”s out of their screen names. Just their screen names; the comments were always okay, so I was sure it was a choice by the commenters. And finally, just last week, realized the fault was not in our stars, but in ourselves; and after a google search learned that I had to go resolve the fonts on my device. Computers are weird.
That said, God bless google, where I found the solution after a relatively painless search
(Come to think of it, the fonts issue also left out the “z” so you were one of those commenters I thought were doing some cool insider thing I didn’t know about!)
Immanentize
@debbie: First combination Tag sale/potluck of the year?
Geminid
Yesterday was a big day at the old apple orchard I caretake. My friend Debbie came out and put up two beehives. Her bee packages should come Friday, so she will probably put them in next weekend.
And my landlord planted three new apple trees. Bill put in 18 acres of apple trees 1979-80. The orchard failed commercially in the 1990s, when warm winters induced early blossoms that were then hit hard by Spring frosts. A couple old trees have survived, but do not bear fruit. Bill hopes the new trees will help pollinate the old.
I took a rest day yesterday, but plan to dig some today. Showers are forecast here Wednesday through Saturday, so it’s time to get vegetable and flower seeds in the ground.
Immanentize
@Nicole: my comments are formatted OK, but my leave a comment box ends up matching the width of your elongated margin. It is a high deterrent to commenting (like Satby’s ‘double post’ problem?).
I understand that many here might find my deterrence pleasing.
debbie
@Immanentize:
It’s a mostly elderly congregation. I’m watching more than a few attempt to back into parking spaces, which is stressful, at least for me.
mrmoshpotato
Febreze – Your stinky summer car needs our stuff, you filthy animal!
Ken
@OzarkHillbilly: Oh, great. Mutant radioactive wisteria.
Besides, the world couldn’t even find a nuke to remove that ship from the canal, Spanky will never find one to use in his backyard.
Ken
And remember to check the “double my gift” button, so your one-time recurring contribution doubles every
monthweek.Ken
Never quite saw the logic of that, as I find it easier to back into the wide-open drive than between two parked cars.
Immanentize
@debbie: ha! That should be a scene in some movie! I can feel the anxiety of the observer from here!
Nicole
@Immanentize: Weird! Is the comment formatted properly after you post it? Not that I have any solution as I’m not that computer smart; I’m just curious.
I have a friend whose emails occasionally do that to my replies to them via gmail, come to think of it. Not every email they send, just some. Definitely annoying when replying; you’re right.
Immanentize
Any word on the timing of Betty Cracker’s Lamb Reveal today?
Halteclere
I love daffodils. Each spring a bunch of daffodils magically appear on my parents property in Missouri, the only thing left from a homestead attempt in the 1800’s.
NotMax
‘Tis the season for the zombee hunters to daub away the stubborn dregs and tittles of winter and ply their pursuit.
Immanentize
@lNicole: Its a common thing on BJ when someone posts a long unsplit character line. I think
“BWAHAHAH….” etc. for scores of characters is the most common culprit. It ends up OK on the desk top; not so good on the phone.
mrmoshpotato
@Immanentize: When you least expect it?
Spanky
@Immanentize: Crocuses spring from daffodil turds.
Thanks for the suggestions on how to nuke wisteria. I dropped that comment before running to the grocery in the early am calm, and just got home.
zhena gogolia
@debbie:
We’re still virtual, although they’re doing communion in a park today. I’m not ready for that.
Nicole
@Immanentize: Note to self: never type the the fancy synonym for “black lung” on this site.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ken: After parallel parking for several decades I find backing into a spot as easy or easier than pulling straight in.
Cheryl Rofer
@Nicole: The hashtag you used is too long for the margins on a phone. Running all the words into one makes it impossible for WP (or me) to figure out where it could be broken.
Tell me where I can break it, and I’ll fix it
ETA: Going to breakfast now but will check back after.
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
I’m sorry. I know how much this means to you.
KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))
The monkeys & meerkats brought back memories of Easter at our house when my boys were teenagers. They were too old for Easter bunnies, of course, but still enjoyed dying eggs the Saturday before (ironically, of course). We had a lovely, coal black dog-in-a-cat’s-body named Medieval who would search out the eggs I hid the next morning, as the boys followed him around encouraging him. It was cute and sweet and a fun way to extend a childhood ritual. I miss that cat a lot.
More of the daffodils are open, and the tet a tets are just about done. The dark Lenten roses have gone from deep maroon to pink, which is my favorite stage, and the Double white one is also shading a pale pink. I had no idea hellebores were so prolific, but the five plants I bought 15 years ago have spread all over the yard. I’ve given away dozens of plants, and still have more to give away every year. Hellebores and daffodils are the 2 things in the yard that deer don’t seem to eat. So far, at least.
oatler.
Chuck has peed in the Easter basket by inviting John Wicker on this morning. Wicker’s Twitter goes from Bible quotes to bitching about “woke” companies leaving Georgia, and of course not a peep about Gaetz.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Tom Lehrer’s paean to spring.
:)
zhena gogolia
@debbie:
Thanks! Good Friday is really the most important holiday of the year to me. I don’t think a Christian church should just skip it. Our church does Maundy Thursday instead. It’s not the same.
Nicole
@zhena gogolia: I’m so sorry.
Although I think he borrowed it, I was very affected by the note Hillary Clinton’s pastor sent to her after the 2016 election, reminding her, as the observant Christian she is, that to reach Easter Sunday, we must first go through Good Friday. I have thought about that analogy a lot over the past four years, and it brings comfort when going through bad times.
Nicole
@Cheryl Rofer: the hashtag in #20. Well, at least we have learned it will not do for Baud’s 2024 campaign slogan, at least not on mobile devices. I think it still has great potential on an airplane banner, however.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Depending on which source one checks, Good Friday is a state holiday in 10, 11 or 12 states, plus an official holiday in Guam, the U.S. Virgin islands, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands and Puerto Rico.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
Honestly, you might not have been able to celebrate Easter here. They require reservations and limit capacity.
I’m watching them exit now. Only one Easter bonnet, and it’s worn by someone’s daughter
ETA: They’re also not practicing social distancing as they stand around to chat before leaving. Some masks, but not everyone’s still wearing them.
NotMax
@Nicole
Baud! ’24! #thetimeisnow.
;)
Baud
@debbie:
As opposed to someone’s son?
debbie
@Baud:
It’s not that kind of church, bub.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: That is why I don’t have a magnolia tree, even though I adore them. If we’re lucky, one year out of seven the blooms and buds don’t freeze.
Heartbreakingly beautiful on a good weather year, just heartbreaking for all the rest.
zhena gogolia
@Nicole:
Yes! Easter means nothing without Good Friday.
Well, the interim minister gave a good sermon, using John Lewis.
zhena gogolia
@debbie:
I’m very much not ready to do church in person!
WaterGirl
@satby: Maybe this will be the year it blooms.
My Jackmanli clematis was here when I bought the house in 1987 and it blooms every year for my birthday.
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: More better now?
WaterGirl
@Nicole: I always fix those as soon as Imm or Steep or someone else mentions it. Steep and Imm are my most reliable reporters, and I appreciate that. So annoying for phone users, so easy to fix.
oatler.
Wicker has come and gone on MTP and Chuck apparently respected his wish not to discuss Gaetz. MTP, like Fox, is a Gaetz-free zone.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
I wish the damn houses would get out of the way, but this is one of my favorite spots in early spring.
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
I’m missing my cousin’s husband’s 70th birthday celebration next week. They’ve planned it as safely as possible (very large space, ventilation, distancing, etc.), but I just cannot get myself to feel comfortable about going to it.
Catherine D.
Today is replant the Aerogardens day. The one that had the flowers for winter now has Chinese cabbage, bok choy, kale mix, and three kinds of lettuce. The herb garden is next. I’m saving my lovely rosemary plant and replacing the others with two parsleys, sage, thyme, and basil. And now I have an earworm ?
Immanentize
@NotMax: Not to mention — One of the few days each year that the stock markets are closed in the US
Immanentize
@WaterGirl: ja, danke.
zhena gogolia
@debbie:
Yeah, I’m not ready. Will be a while for that kind of thing.
sab
@debbie: Ohio is vaxxing almost everyone now. Grocery store pharmacies are your best bet. Try them.
Pennsylvanians and Michiganders. Ohio doesn’t care about residence.
sab
@sab: Also rural counties. Their people are morons, so their vaccines are available because they don’t want them.
debbie
@sab:
Oh, I got mine. I will be as immune as Pfizer can get me tomorrow at 1 pm. There are at least seven variants floating around in Ohio, so I will continue solitude.
Nicole
@WaterGirl: Much obliged!
jnfr
There is one daffodil in our yard, under our second-story deck. It was here when we moved in more than 20 years ago, and it’s the first bloom in the yard every spring.
It just bloomed!
WaterGirl
@debbie: Wow!
glc
Re: eggs.
Easter is a pagan agricultural fertility rite aiming at bringing in a productive year. Eggs, bunnies, are fertility symbols for straightforward reasons. It’s been going on a very long time. Eastre or Eostre was a goddess of fertility and spring. (Thought to be related to East and the rising sun.)