officially spring

I changed the plate on the mantel as usual. The one my mother painted with wild roses is somewhat appropriate, though it is much too early for any to bloom.

I moved the rosemary onto the side porch in the shade, to acclimatize to the outdoors before it spends the summer on the front porch in the sun.

I finally found the daffodils coming up through the leaves. Four days ago they were under snow, too, but still.

And I got a shot of my neighbor's new birdhouse.

If you look closely at the blue segment on the left you can see the hole cut for a door. So far, I have seen no one building a nest there. It might be rather hot and poorly ventilated.

crying wolf

I saw the truck putting up this sign (and its fellow in the opposite direction) last Thursday at dusk. Friday  (since I worked just down the street) I know that no work was done. Sunday the snow and sleet started that are forecast to last through Tuesday, so the likelihood that anyone would start digging up the street was small indeed.

This kind of thing annoys me because the more people learn to ignore signs like these the more the workers are endangered when they are there. If you're spending a million dollars on a small neighborhood sewer project (which is certainly needed!) surely you can spend some thought on planning as well. 

wood stacked

A friend of a friend came and cut up the giant tree limb that fell in the last ice storm. (We're having another one right now. Three weeks from spring.) He wouldn't let me pay him anything, even when I pointed out that chain saws don't run on air.

Next year he'll come back and split it for me, and it will keep me warm for a couple of weeks at least. Maybe even a month. It's burr oak, which I'm sure doesn't produce the heat that white oak does, but it's still oak.

But the stack is considerably smaller than the brush pile (which he is going to haul away.)

I am fortunate in my friends, as well as my near misses.