Spring

It occurred to me the other day that I could change the top picture on my blog to reflect the season. I had Kylie with a huge icicle up there for a while. You'll have to excuse me, because spring is all new to me. I've never really been through spring before. You see, in Arizona, you go from comfortable (70ish) to summer (100 degrees plus) in about three days. So this spring stuff is kind of a novelty to me.

We have a concrete slab porch outside the front door. There is a family (group? coven?) of wild cottontail rabbits that live under the porch. Thanks to my boyfriend Google, I now know that you can call a group of wild rabbits a colony, a warren or a nest. I think I like colony. At some other time, we will discuss why I am going to marry Google.

So there's a colony of wild cottontail rabbits that live under the porch. There is a hole that they've dug in the dirt where the concrete meets the earth which is their entrance/exit. For most people, that dirt would be a flower bed. Last year, in early fall, I planted some mums there. Two days later, they were killed by a freak hailstorm. All my life, I have killed plants. I have come to the conclusion that there are many things I am good at...gardening is not one of them.

Yesterday, this little guy popped out of the hole and into the should-be-a-flowerbed:

Baby bunny! How cute is that? I don't know if you can compare him to the size of the leaves and tell how small he is, but if I made a fist with one hand and then wrapped my other hand around my fist, he was about that big. And my hands aren't very big. Unlike the adult rabbits, who are oblivious to us walking around and driving our cars up the driveway, this guy was a little skittish. I had to be vewy, vewy sneaky and quiet to get his picture. The deer are out too, with some little ones. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to have my camera one day when I see some.

A few weeks ago, like the last weekend in April, we went to City Park in downtown Denver, because there's this thing here called the Cherry Tree Project, and there are parks around town where every year, they plant a few more cherry trees. I had to see this phenomenon, because I've only seen pictures of cherry trees. This is one of the bigger ones.

They are all different sizes, because they plant more every year.

I think that this is still a cherry tree, just a different strain? Its blossoms were pink, not white.

Later on that week, I noticed something interesting. I didn't need to go to City Park to see cherry trees. They are everywhere. They're in the medians on the street I drive to go to the grocery store. They're all over my neighborhood. I'm not sure why I didn't notice that before. Now, on the 15th of May, the blossoms are turning from white to green. But they sure were pretty while they lasted.

This is a group of trees in my neighborhood. This is the corner where all the jr high and high school kids wait for the bus in the morning. Except for my kid, you know, because buses are "gross." I don't know what they're doing on the street with the orange cones and yellow tape. Husband says they're putting in more streetlights, which would be nice, because those deer sometimes surprise you in the road at night. Nevertheless, it does not add to the ambiance of my picture.

The previous picture doesn't really correctly show the color of the tree. This close-up of the blossoms is more what the color actually looks like. It's really pretty. I don't know what kind of tree this is. It looks like cherry blossoms, but it's the wrong color. Husband said possibly cranberry? Is he full of shit? Does anyone know what kind of tree this is?

This tree is at the end of our street, next to Michael and Matthew's house. They are twins, also in first grade like Kylie. Except they go to a private school. Whatever. I don't even know the parents' names, I just know Michael and Matthew. Because I always hear, "Mom, I'm going down to Michael and Matthew's house!" Their backyard is way more fun than ours.

In case the color of this tree looks a little strange...I might have overdone it on the saturation. That's only because the color in the picture didn't look right. Then again, this color doesn't look right either, but at least it's cool. The actual color of this tree is red, not neon fuchsia. Red. Husband says it's a crab apple tree. Again, I have no idea if this is true.

Same tree, close-up. Again, the actual color is closer to red than this, but how gorgeous is this?

You know what's wild about Colorado in the spring? All these beautiful plants and trees bloom, and everything is so colorful and very green...and then it snows. On May 12th.

Same tree on the corner (you can tell because of the lovely yellow tape there still), with snow on the branches.

The tree next to Michael and Matthew's house, with snow. That's actually more like the real color of the tree. I can't decide if it's prettier by itself, or with its branches dusted white. I like both.

These are some poor daffodils in my backyard. I didn't plant these, someone who lived here before us did. And I guess they're...annuals? They come back every year, whether you do anything or not. Those are my kind of flowers. Two days before this picture was taken, they were standing up straight and tall in their yellowness, and they were quite beautiful. Then the snow weighed them all down, poor things. I brushed snow off them to take the picture. I'm hoping they straighten up. Or there's going to be hell to pay, missy. Did your dad ever tell you to "straighten up?" Mine did. I wouldn't recommend just visibly standing straighter, like you're in the military, when your dad says that. I'm just sayin'. It wasn't a good day for me.

The weather here today is bipolar. Sunny this morning, then a huge boom of thunder, which made me go wtf? Then it rained, now it's sunny again. More rain later, they say. However, I've learned that while the weather people say things? They really have no idea what they're talking about. If they want an easy job, they should go to Arizona. All you have to know how to say there is "Hot and sunny, high of 100+" for about eight months, then "Sunny, high in the 70s" for about 2 months. November and March are kind of a crapshoot. But nothing like a Colorado weather crapshoot. This is fun stuff.