Wes Thu Hál

Hello! I tell you- just when you think Spring might be happening, a nor'easter sneaks up on you. In spite of the three and a half feet of snow that fell, Spring marches on. A flock of red-winged blackbirds took advantage of my feeders, along with a couple of grackles and cardinals. The usual traffic of chickadees, sparrows, and blue jays was steady and today we saw our first robin.

Inside, the baby amaryllis bloomed a beautiful deep red and my pot of impatiens has flowered as well. On a trip to the grocery store I found buckets of both pussywillow and curly willow branches for decoration. I searched through the bucket of curly willow until I found one bunch that had a few leaves and swollen leaf nodes on each of the branches. I brought it home and put it in a bucket of water. Tomorrow I'll get some planters set up and try to root as many cuttings as I can. Looking at those branches made me think about how beautiful and useful the willow tree is and so now I'll move on to this week's Noble Interest.