Spring Doings

Spring blooms are nearly done here, but I thought I'd share what's around my yard:

The early season cherry trees were really beautiful this year:

And the lorapetalum put on quite a show as well.  Here is a photo of the nearly 5-foot tall bush in front of the house...

and here is a close-up of one of the flowers.  I think they look like exploding fireworks.

This is the later-season cherry tree that's in the backyard.  When we moved in nearly 9 years ago, it barely reached the eaves of the roof on the shed next to it.  Now it towers over that whole area.

And the phlox near that cherry tree is so pretty, nestled up in front of the day lily leaves:

The day before Easter, we went to the NC state zoo in Asheboro.  They were giving "Easter egg" treats to a number of the animals.  They blow up a ballon, cover it in paper mache and paint them to look like Easter eggs.  Once it's dry, they deflate the balloons and put snacks into the eggs, and place them around the animals' enclosures.

The cougars were such fun to watch!  They really went into hunting mode, and stalked their prey before pouncing on it and ripping it to shreds.  Here's one climbing up a tree to get the egg:

The black bears weren't quite as observant as the cougars, and it took them a while to figure out food was available.  But once they figured it out they had a ball getting their treats out.

The boys were on spring break last week, and it got into the low 90s on several of the days.  We traditionally open the pool at Easter, and by Tuesday, when it hit 92 or so, the pool was ready to use.  Ready from a balanced chemicals and clarity perspective, that is.  The water couldn't have been more than 63 degrees.  But that did not stop my boys from getting in.

They were freezing, but managed to submerge and have fun for a good 15-20 minutes before they were cold enough that the testosterone was no longer in charge of their brains.

Oh, and the dog went too...

I'll have a few scrappy creations for you tomorrow or Friday.

Tidal Pool Critters

While at the Cape, we stayed in Brewster, MA. The Brewster Flats are pretty amazing. According to Wikipedia, "The Brewster Flats are tidal flats on on Cape Cod Bay in Massachusetts, particularly near the town of Brewster, and are a unique environment. They are the widest expanse of tidal flats in North America, rivaled in the western hemisphere only by a similar expanse in Brazil."

At low tide, you could walk straight out from the beach for at least a mile. There were all sorts of critters out there for the boys to find. Some critters were alive, and some of the critters were dead. The dead ones contributed a nice little stink during low tide, though that attracted all sorts of sea birds. Easy meal, I guess.

It was a nice walk out. Some bare sand, some shallow (mid-calf at it's deepest) water, and a few sandbars with little tidal rivers beside them. The boys loved seeing and learning about the sea life. Here are a few of the animals we saw:

Green crab

Hermit crab

Sand dollar (I'd never seen a living one before!)

Jellyfish (picture courtesy of my friend Babs who joined us for a day)We also saw huge horseshoe crabs, sea snails, small shrimp, small fish who got trapped in the tidal pools (and then chased by the boys), clams, sea gulls (of course), sandpipers, and a variety of other shore birds. There were tons of shells, but mostly oysters, mussels, clams, and razor clams.