Cruel, even by April standards

It's snowing on the lower flanks of Tiger Mountain. And doing its best to stick. That little 'Frost' Peach in the foreground? In a typical year every single blossom sets fruit and I have to thin hundreds, if not thousands of tiny green peaches so that I can get a crop of good-sized peaches that don't break the branches. I'm thinking that won't be necessary this year, unless there are some very determined and cold-tolerant bees out there.

The usual suspects

For garden bloggers' bloom day I was going to point you to last April's entry and say "same old, same old" but it's not the same old at all. It's more like last March. This year the bleeding hearts are barely poking their leaves above the ground, no buds on the maples, no trillium in the woods, no elderberry, salmonberry, or camas lily, no rhodies, no cherry blossoms, no apple blossoms, and no tulips, although blame there can probably be placed on two naughty goats who figured out that the fence charger was on the fritz and wriggled under the mesh to browse amongst the perennials.

What's blooming, or about to break into bloom:

• anemone nemerosa
• azalea (but only the one in the very warmest spot)
• camellia japonica (one, with a single bud)
• daffodils
• daphne odora
• forsythia (late!)
• hepatica
• hellebores
• hyacinth
• spireathunbergii

In the orchard:

• peach tree

In the woods:

• Indian plum
• wild cherry,
• skunk cabbage

In the lawn:

• dandelions

And, in two hanging baskets on my porch, inadvertently ignored on every bloom day post since they were planted back in September, frozen countless times, watered only by the snow and rain, these incredibly stalwart violas.

Friday Five and a Puppy Picture

Posting has been extremely light for, um, the last six months or so. Blame it on too much travel for the high-tech career that funds my low-tech gardening, baking, and livestock-raising lifestyle. Or the weather. Or an unshakable ennui that seems to be lifting, finally, with a return to longer days.

In an attempt to return to regular posting I'm going to fall back two blogger standbys--a silly list and a cute animal picture. My cats are both notoriously private creatures and so old as to not be particularly cute. So it falls to the puppy, who is 14 weeks old today, to be my muse:

Now for the list. Dang, my muse is napping. Okay, how about five online comics I read religiously:
Indexed
xkcd
Married to the Sea
Wondermark
Get Your War On (Warning: contains strong language and political themes)