Spring in Michigan!

Beautiful weather! Cool strong winds, hazy blue skies, everything turning green! Nice thunderstorm a couple nights ago.


I've always loved spring with all the plants bursting into life, but  never realized that the spring leaves have colors similar to fall.... more green, of course, but lots of reds and yellow-greens, too.

The shiny red leaves of some maples,

the fuzzy red of an oak leaf,

ferns unfurling,

sassafras buds just beginning to loosen up..

Cynthia and I walked through the woods and marshes,

looking for mushrooms (found none), finding lots of places that wild turkeys had dug up the leaves, enjoying the spring scents, and finding this strange semi-arboreal creature.

Lucy loves hunting squirrels!

Once we returned to the car, we found ticks, so spent five minutes then and later picking them off our clothes and dogs... and added DEET to our grocery list.


We found loads of wild strawberries and wild blueberries in bloom. In another couple months the fields of commercial blueberries will be ripe. So will the cherries, wild black raspberries, and wild blueberries. Wonderful place for foraging!


And Cynthia (well, Lucy) found a mallard duck sitting on her eggs at the edge of a parking lot close to our house, near no water we know of. We wish her well.