Townsendia hookeri

Today, April 8 2017, an Easter Daisy distinctively in bud, hard to see with the naked eye, but the macro setting on my camera makes it quite clear.
I am very happy about that. And the way my brain works,  wanting facts, which btw will be forgotten by next spring, hence  i like to write it all down. And to continue that thought, the Internet has made it all possible for me to actually know, most of the time, how to find what i wrote. My paper notes are  total disorganized, not even in, piles.
Anyway
I am trying to find out what makes flowers come out. I suspect it is daytime temperatures above zero,  I figure looking at all my notes here and everywhere, that for the first flowers to bloom in spring we need 3 weeks of daytime temperatures above zero.  It seems to work for crocuses.
Now i don't know this Easter Daisy (Townsendia) very well yet, but i now do know this one, growing 15 min. walk from the highway (where i drive by once a week)
When i found my first Townsendia it was by accident, May 12 2010 ( see my Jozien's  Yukon wildflower blog. All the  8 early flowers, that i know, were blooming that day. Now i checked the temperature for that year. Interestingly the temperature started rising above zero, March 24. This year March 26. So very similar.
Now i also know that  on normal years ( and this probably one of them) I find the first crocus by the end of April.
I do think now that townsendia will be right there blooming along with the crocus, just a slightly different habitat. We only see few last year crocus clumps today, and no buds.

crocus bud

Thursday i was in town, my April wild flowers article in What's Up Yukon had come out the day before, and as i do enjoy the attention i get from that, the talk went to crocuses. I had written we need at least another week before the will bloom. But as it came to be i happened to be sitting beside two women in  a local coffee shop, these two women,  individually!  - Were already crocus hunting!- Instead of what you might think, trying to tell them it was sure to be another week. I got up bright and early friday morning (8 am) and went up to my  hill sized mountain in the back here. In a warm swale, indeed, i found the beginnings! They look a little fragile though, i wonder if they had come up early in February with a warm spell, only to be stopped in growth in  our cold March. Now April warm again, i think they will make it.

And if i could  say, "you write it and it will be" as in "you dream it and we build it" I don't know who said that.

But my previous article, before the wild flowers, was about  halo's and all

and there it goes 

yesterday from that mountain 

i watched

a 22 degree solar halo! I had not seen one all winter.

If you are interested ( if there is a you:) do read my article on What's Up Yukon's website, search my name , jozien keijzer.
And :) i will read some blogs again, to be part of  the community of bloggers. I do find after i read a blog, and i like what i read, i have this longing to just press 'love'....

I wonder if Mother Nature needs our comments?

insects and birds

I think this blog , just wants me to tell stories, what it was originally intended for, the stories of what is happening around me in nature.
Yesterday Hairy Woodpecker, the male, was working on a possible nest site, later that day the chickadees checked it out too. Either bird, as i do not feed the birds, are not around all the time or even everyday. Harry as i call him, did come around audibly in February when we had a warm spell. A week ago it came by with a female and they had some kind interaction, drumming ,calling, meeting up and flying off together.
This is woodpecker heaven here, as Don ( my husband) and i are currently cleaning up the forest around our house, i do find many many trees, dead and alive with woodpecker holes ( drumming , looking for woodboring insects maybe) the little ones, big holes like this several too, but not plentiful like the little holes.

Flying insects came out too yesterday, i saw ( my first for the season) two blue bottle flies. and there were half a dozen observed by me, over a matter of an hour, yellowish round fluffy flies flying around. I have no idea what they are. And today i will look for them again, but yesterday there was no possible way of getting close to them and observing them, they would just suddenly appear and disappear flying in an opening in the forest in front of the house.

I am always so energized by this melting season ( which one can not quite call spring) i love watching the water run in the yard, spend time again yesterday  with my ditches, run off is going well. The snow is so to speak 'rotten' in the heat of the afternoon,  the tires are 'falling through' on the drive way.

hey i am sure i will so much fun again today!

the birds and the bees

and i am good

 and life is singing

haha birds

and not yet bees 

whatever it is

it is dark 

 the other side

 light

haha birds?

that bird is not a haha birds

that is beautiful bird

and when the bees come winter will be on its way again too and i love making little ditches in the 2% sloped yard, so the water will run and early in the morning i jump on the thin ice in the dried up puddles, 

bees come out when it is 9 degrees Celsius

squirrels

Still i am not in a poetry mood, i will tell a story and chop it a bit and maybe it passes like a poem. My story today is about squirrels, and i am not to nibble on it, the squirrels presence in my forest is omnipresent, always audible and visible. I could easily say, my forest is owned by the squirrels and i am their tenant. Thinking of them as the landlord, they allow everyone to come and live in close proximity and for us to do basically anything we want. And they are very good caretakers, not only do they warn all of us passerby's and tenants when some of us or an outsider are walking by. They also look after the forest.
Instead of poetic squabble lets honor the squirrel today, lets make sure we build our house in such a way that we don't blame the squirrel for cleaning up after us. And honor it by having them have their own space, storage rooms and middens, spruce trees. Whatever you have to do to live harmoniously with your landlord, please do so. Thanks, Jozien

the big melt down

no relevance between the sights 

and sounds

 hard packed snow turns slush

the last day of the hunting season

we look for bison

finding mining claims

even solidly frozen

ice will 

crack you up

the laughter of the water running

every spring we dig trenches

to create a water flow

not that it'll melt faster

we would have as much fun 

building dams

to create a temporary

swimming pool

April poetry month

this time starting in earnest
high up in the sky ravens circle
they are obviously having a spring gathering
all the way out here
i am honored

my one raven
franticly flying to reach them
joins