Yesterday Back in the Saddle

There are many ways to tell we are just over 26 days from the turn into spring as I write this post. This past morning was cool but not cold. I noticed this as I went outside in my stocking feet to take the photo below.  The sun was pushing these clouds ahead of its golden warmth.

We had a high of 56F by mid-day.  Rain is, of course, predicted as this warm air moving in meets the colder air.  I rushed to put on gardening clothes and spent several hours cutting away the dried stalks of perennials and pruning back the smaller shrubs.  I pulled dead annuals such as last summer's zinnias and saved the roots for this summer's class with children about root structure and size.  I took a hoe to the small annual cut flower bed and had to remove 80% of the chickweed that carpets the entire bed in lime green.  There were dozens of small larkspur plants from last year's seeds fighting for space with their ferny leaves.  I will have to go back in a week or so and hand pull those chickweeds in between.  I was ruthless in removing the black eyed Susan as they grow everywhere in other beds.  

While weeding near the hellebores I noticed that the sapsucker had braceleted the sugar maple's trunk sucking up the returning sugars.  I made a note to try and hide somewhere to get a photo. 

By noon the storm was moving in from across the river, and I was tired.

 
I had not I finished 50% of what I had hoped to complete but two and half hours of work was the best type of exercise I had had all winter.  I was glad to see the disturbed ground worms as I pulled up the excess of fennel plants.  I worked to the rhythm of the woodpeckers drumming in the tulip trees.  The only thing missing was the smell of earth, maybe not warm enough yet?  I did not rake the leaves and detritus as we usually still have ground freezes ahead of us.