April showers

Rain has moved across the mountain today, bringing some much-needed April showers. The region is now nearly 6 inches below normal for rainfall. Today's rain will help that a bit, though I don't think I'm supposed to get more than 1 inch today. Still, it is a help.

The buds on the smaller trees are about to pop. The dog-toothed violet is soon to bloom--or maybe not. Tonight and tomorrow night frost is expected, perhaps even a killing frost, though that is less likely. In any event, it's probably likely that the little frost will be the coldest night before fall rolls around again.

For now, it is warm enough on a gray and rainy morning but not so warm that a little hot tea wouldn't taste pretty good in the next few minutes. I took a brief walk in the woods yesterday afternoon before the rain settled in. The forest still doesn't look too spring-like. Bare trees, only a few with buds. I find a little onion grass, a tiny handful of green grass but little else. Likely the dryness of the forest floor has something to do with that. The temperature this spring has been about normal, if tending towards the cooler side of normal.

So this rain, despite the cold that will follow for a few days, will do my area a lot of good. I am already thinking this is one of those springs where nothing much happens for a long time--and then it will all explode at once. It will be the kind of spring where you can almost see the change from hour to hour let alone from morning to evening. Then I will likely complain that it's too fast, that there's too much to see. Such is spring.

My photo today was taken as the weather was moving in but before the rain actually started. Roundtop is in the distance, still with a little snow. That is disappearing really fast in this rain. The orchard still looks pretty barren--no blossoms yet. The orchard and the forest alike are in waiting, soon to take center stage.