Memorial Day in VT.

5-27-23 VERMONT: We’re here, finally, the trip was a traffic nightmare, especially I-84.

The gardens are all busy with perennial rebirth. I am looking for all my plantings to appear and worry whether something is just late or dead. We seem to be pretty good, depending on some late sleepers waking up. 

I think we have trained Blue to the canine fence, but Judy is still nervous about letting her loose without supervision.

The upper pond has thousands of tadpoles. They have a tougher time in the lower pond with fish and turtles preying on them. 

One of the elms is dead and will need to be taken down. The apple trees are gorgeous--a Memorial Day regular event.

New blooms: ajuga, primrose, Virginia blue bell, columbine, lamium, honey suckle bush, water avens, star flower, golden alexander, trillium, azalea, apple tree, lilac, violet, bleeding heart, forget-me-not, tiarella, pulmonaria, spurge, epimedium, alkanet, marsh marigold, wild strawberry, Mohican viburnum, cowslip, blueberry, celandine, jack-in-the-pulpit, creeping veronica, buttercup, vinca, sweet woodruff, gill-over-the-ground, baneberry, false solomon’s seal.  

The apple tree by the deck. When the wind blows it's like snow.

Other apple trees.

The big picture, with an apple tree in the pond.

Bleeding hearts under the apple trees.

A few tadpoles, they're developing their hind legs.

A female rose-breasted grosbeak, not nearly the dramatic male I showed a few weeks ago.

Gray catbird, rarely seen at the feeder.