Peepers

In case you don't know, peepers are a type of small frog that come out of hibernation every Spring to begin a new year and to breed and otherwise enjoy their lives. If you live even in suburbia you've likely heard their call when they pop out to announce to us that their long sleep is over. It's something that I have experienced all of my life, except for the years when I've lived in an urban environment.

For the past three years, generally around this time in the midst of winter, we will have a very powerful warm patch (we don't even have a prolonged winter anymore) and the peepers will emerge and begin to call out, letting us all know that they're here. And for the past two winters I have worried--apparently needlessly--that doom will befall them all. My assumption has been that the next cold snap will catch our thin-skinned amphibian pals by surprise and that they'll all freeze to death and the local population of peepers will become extinct.

But I'm not going to worry about the tiny frogs anymore. It's not as if I don't have enough to worry about. I don't need this yearly burden to bear. The way I figure it now is that they've survived two warm winter thaws and refreezes with no diminished ability to crawl up to fresh air and fill our neighborhood with their pleasant songs. Winter of 2018/19 they did it. Winter of 2019/20 they committed the same act. And here it is Winter of 2020/21 and once more they're singing their itty-bitty lungs out and serenading me.

This year I'm not worrying. They did A-OK the past two winters and avoided a mass die-off. I figure they'll do it again and continue to repopulate the local ecology. My little friends are going to be fine. Maybe that's a good tiding for the rest of us, too.

It's 50 degrees out, headed for the mid-60s. The peepers are singing in the back yard. We're good to go.

 

Hey, Mr. Peeper!

Yard, Spring of 2019.

I forgot to post photos of the yard for this Spring. The azaleas and the dogwoods were nice. Not the best I've ever seen them, but pretty darned good. Some of the azaleas are dying and we need to plant new ones. It has been three years since Carole and I took the effort to replace the older azaleas in some of the beds. So we'll have to tackle that task this year. In addition, a few of the more mature dogwoods are also dying off. A few new dogwoods were nice enough to appear on their own over the past five years, but we'll have to target some spaces in the yard with transplanted trees. That's another task we'll have to take on this year.

At any rate, here are photos of this Spring's show.

The front yard.

One of the dozen azalea beds in the back yard. (Things still don't look right to us since the property owner behind us harvested the hardwood forest back there.)

Azaleas and dogwoods on the left side, back yard.

Another of the twelve beds in the back.

Dogwood branches in full bloom.

Our travel trailer. I took this today after getting the Casita all scrubbed for our upcoming vacation.

It took an awful lot of elbow grease to get the Casita cleaned up this time. She was really, really dirty.

Frank's Legacy

One of the nicest people I ever met was my father-in-law, Frank Henderson. I've heard this said many times about some people: "He never knew a stranger." Well, with Frank, that was actually true. He genuinely liked people and he loved to make new acquaintances. And I never met anyone who didn't like him.

He's been gone a long time, now. Taken from his family by cancer. But I see echoes of him every time Carole and I visit her mom. He built the house her mom lives in. Back in the 1960s. And when I say "he built it", I mean that. He even dug the foundation himself. Yeah.With a pick and shovel.

But what makes me think of Frank every time I go over there is the yard and the landscaping. He did all that himself, too. He had the forethought to purchase two lots so that he'd have much room and a place for his kickass garden. No matter how tired Frank would be when he got home from his job as an electrical engineer for Duke Power, he would work in his garden. And when that was done, he'd tinker with the trees and flower beds that make that yard a very special place in the Spring.

So, here's to Frank Henderson. I think of him whenever I see the house he built and the yard he landscaped and planted.

Every Spring is a treasure for the eyes.

The front of the house. I rarely take any photos of the front yard. But there it is.

The grassy area in front of the dogwoods and azalea bed was where Frank had his garden. He could have fed an army with the fruits and vegetables he grew there.

Winter Has Fled (at last)?

Well, it looks like Old Man Winter finally has the worst of his claws out of the local weather. It's supposed to be rather chilly tonight, and we have had to actually close the windows, but I think we'll see no more sub-freezing temperatures and frozen precipitation for the rest of the season.

We went to Carole's mom's place and did some stuff to get the Casita ready for our next trip. Still a few weeks away, but it's good to get these things done in good time. I walked around the yard and took in the sights. Carole's dad, Frank, did a really nice job with landscaping the place when he was here. In the years since his passing we have moved out a few dead azaleas and cut down some dying dogwoods and replanted new shrubs and trees where we could. I noticed today that the grounds need some TLC, which we can give them in a couple of weeks--removing dead limbs, raking out some rough patches, and removing some invasive plants. But by and large, the yard is going to be gorgeous in a couple of more weeks when the azaleas burst out in full bloom and the dogwoods show off their white color.

Looking forward to the dogwoods and azaleas in full bloom behind the Casita.

Some of the azalea beds need some work.

The pink blossoms are preceding the white ones.

 And some macro shots of mainly wildflowers in the back yard:

Spring!

I know we still have some official Winter to slog through...but the trees think it's Spring!

One a street on my route. Two days ago.

Spring Still Arriving.

Here it is almost summer in the Piedmont, and yet we arrived to find Spring yet to complete its unfurling at Grayson Highlands.

One thing that we both noticed as we strolled the forests at around 4,000 feet was that the trees had that new, almost emerald-green look about them. And the leaves were obviously fresh, fragile, not yet established.

And once we hit the really high ridges at or above 5,000 feet we saw that some of the trees were still in the process of leafing out, and some had not yet achieved even that feat!

Things like this impress upon me (even at this late date in my life) how fragile the Earth is.

 

New green. A different kind of green.

  

I'm ready to give up on macro photography until I can buy a decent macro lens.

On the high ridges (above 5,000 feet) the hardwoods hadn't leafed out yet.

Spruce trees making new growth.

New leaves just unfurling.

May 26 and this tree was just getting started on the new year of growth.