Demesne doings

Today there's a haze or suggestion of color along the branches; tomorrow there will be open flowers on the ornamental pear tree and on at least one redbud. New nasturtiums had germinated overnight. They'll begihn to replace the ones frozen earlier, both in pots and in the ground. Nearly all the blue hyacinths have made an appearance and now the pinks ones are opening, the lighter ones, not the more intense pinks. We have one St. Brigid anemone, those great red ones with a white circle. There are more blue and some fuchsia anemones de Caen. This morning the first allium was open. Late these afternoons there are still sulphur butterflies in various sizes and in several degrees of color-intensity. We've been seeing lots of gulf fritillaries again, but no larvae yet.As we've done for over a year, we keep plant coasters of various sizes filled with fresh water. They were used all winter long as a source of drinking-water by various birds and creatures with four legs (good perching and scrambling places right there for those who might be prey) and these last couple of days they've been bathed and spalashed in a lot. With warm weather like this, our flowers won't last very long outdoors and it's a shame to cut them and bring them in when they look so pretty scattered all over the dormant lawns.