As usual, my spring days are so busy that the only time I have to write a blog post is when it’s raining.  It’s raining tonight – so here goes!

We had our last snowstorm – hopefully the last for the season – on April 21st.

 

Now it’s warm and the hills are turning green.  This is the savanna on top of Sumac Prairie, about a week ago.

 

And this is the Narrows Prairie today, with the storm coming.

 

The biggest project at the moment is pulling Garlic Mustard.  I’m working on my favorite spot this week – the woods along the edge of Western Prairie.  All our woods has been logged – before we bought the land – but there are still lots of woodland wildflowers.  It’s fun to listen to the birds and look at the flowers as I work.

 

Mike has been helping me with the Garlic Mustard project because the end of the season is coming, and there’s a lot more to do.  I have to stop when the seeds form – before they start falling off the plants.   Mike took photos of the place where we pulled today – I had missed seeing it for a few years, so by the time I found it, this year, it was pretty bad.

Here it is before we started pulling.

 

And after……. much better!

 

All the native spring flowers are blooming now.

Wood Anemone

 

Wild Strawberry

 

This is a violet that’s a natural hybrid – it’s called an Early Blue Violet, and it’s a cross between one of the violets with divided leaves (probably Viola pedatifida) and one of the common blue violets (Viola affinis or Viola sororia)

 

Yellow Violet

 

Bird’s Foot Violet

 

Small-flowered Buttercup

 

Marsh Marigold

 

Hoary Puccoon

 

Blue-eyed Grass – not really a grass – it’s actually in the same family as Iris.

 

Bloodroot

 

This is the earliest of the flowering trees – Serviceberry

 

Wild Plum – which just started blooming a few days ago.

 

We’re starting to see butterflies and dragonflies.

This is a Mourning Cloak – one of the earliest butterflies.  It’s looking a little tattered because it spent the winter as an adult, hibernating behind bark or in a pile of brush.

 

A Spring Azure – the first of the butterflies that emerges from a chrysalis in the spring.

 

And finally it’s moth season again!  I’ve been getting some of the beautiful early moths at my lights.

Staight-lined Plagodis

 

Lettered Sphinx – this is always the first Sphinx moth

 

Two-lined Hooktip

 

Snake Warning – for those of you who don’t like even pictures of snakes!

This is a Smooth Green Snake.  I’ve only seen this species three times here, in 15 years.  And this is the first time I’ve been able to get a good picture.  It was stretched across the path through one of our planted prairies.

 

A Spring Sunrise