It is Spring, Yes!

[ski3pin]

Excellent photo for the explanation!

 

[Smokecreek1]

X2. Dang, better keep that plow close Ski, the weather folks just changed all those rain signs on the weekly forecast to rain/snow or snow and not just for the high country but for the hills too! Sun just peaked out through the clouds and the robins, nut hatches, flickers and the like are out and about so it seems like spring has sprung, now if the weather would just cooperate. Well at least the pop-up is ready to go!

Smoke

 

[takesiteasy]

Woo hoo! Had our first 50° day since November 1, 2018. More coming today and tomorrow. We may have turned the corner. Itching to get the camper out of the garage and on the truck but realistically it will be another month before we do that.

 

[MarkBC]

Stripped to the bone!
(I think this is spring-related...it's season-related)

I'm not sure that I knew that deer eat juniper -- now I know:


This is the same tree of which I posted a couple photos of its freshly-downed carcass only 3 weeks ago:


Deer are like piranhas -- veggie-carrion-eating land-based piranhas.

 

[ski3pin]

I know how much deer love peach trees and blueberry bushes.

 

[MarkBC]

I know how much deer love peach trees and blueberry bushes.

That makes sense -- peach and blueberry sounds a lot tastier than harsh and resinous juniper.

I don't mind the deer helping themselves to down juniper...but seems like in exchange for the free food they could have limbed, bucked and stacked the remains. Just common courtesy....

 

[Casa Escarlata Robles Too]

That makes sense -- peach and blueberry sounds a lot tastier than harsh and resinous juniper.

I don't mind the deer helping themselves to down juniper...but seems like in exchange for the free food they could have limbed, bucked and stacked the remains. Just common courtesy....

Yeah those deer are so selfish.
Frank

 

[MarkBC]

It's nice and sunny here in Bend, and looks to be in most of my favorite places across the West.

 

[MarkBC]

I just saw a chipmunk scampering and scrounging under the bird feeders! First sighting of the year!...

..And yesterday I made my first sighting this year of a golden-mantled ground squirrel and a California ground squirrel -- at the same time!
Nothing remarkable about seeing these -- just notable 'cause it's the first time this year.

All three of these rodents appeared just after the snow melted and ground appeared...though back in December and January we had no snow, but they were nevertheless out of sight.
Hibernation seems like a great way to spend the winter if you're not into snow sports.

 

[BillTheHiker]

And Red Mountain Pass is open again. Found this great video of it:
https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/regional/this-terrifying-video-shows-what-crews-had-to-go-through-to-reopen-a-colorado-mountain-pass/277-26b02385-6bd2-4c77-9293-119033158664

Sorry folks, but link no longer works. I Googled and found other news sites also have a link to the video but those also do not work, so they all must be pointing to the same source that has been removed.

But here is one with a couple of pictures:
https://snowbrains.com/red-mountain-pass-reopens/

 

[MarkBC]

"April showers bring May flowers" -- they say.



...also bring cheatgrass to a lot of the West (including my place).

Back on the positive side (for me): The string of days with more-or-less above-freezing temperatures means I can fill my camper water system to check out its new-and-improved function without worry of freezing it (again).

 

[ski3pin]

sorry about the cheatgrass. I hate cheatgrass.

Another sign that spring is here - on our early morning walk today a small mountain lion ran across the road just ahead of us. The Lady saw it. I missed it. The deer haven't really started moving up country yet but there are lots of turkeys, dogs, and cats about for dining options for the big cats.

 

[MarkBC]

sorry about the cheatgrass. I hate cheatgrass....

Oh yeah -- very much!

On a purely personal level: As a kid, and sometimes as an adult, after walking through a field of dry cheatgrass I've sometimes thrown away the socks I was wearing rather than spend an hour de-cheatgrassing them.

On a bigger scale: Besides displacing native grasses ("Early to sprout, early to seed, makes for a really horrible weed!"), dry cheatgrass is an explosive wildfire starter/spreader.

Another sign that spring is here - on our early morning walk today a small mountain lion ran across the road just ahead of us. The Lady saw it. I missed it.

Wow -- very cool!
Alas, I've still yet to see a mountain lion, cougar, panther, puma...
I'm not usually a believer in the "bucket list", but if I made a bucket list I'd put "seeing a mountain lion in the wild -- close but safe" -- at the top. Maybe if I was really old I could drop the "but safe" part..

 

[Smokecreek1]

Cheatgrass sucks---as does this god darned weather. It may be a little warmer, with dashes of nice weather, but it rains and rains and rains (with snow in the high country) and it's cold still at night! I know it is great for the drought and all that fast growing cheatgrass but at the present rate I'll need a boat to get out and about this spring.

Mark, want some mountain lions come here, with all the local deer in town instead of the woods these days, the lions have come to town too. There is one up where I walk "Bob," and one last year was dragging his kills over behind the college gym to store them. Fish and Game just put down a injured, sick and very thin young female over on Bizz Joihnson Trail("bout a 1/4 mile from me) last week. You have to watch your dogs these days, but no one has been attacked yet. Ho, Ho, Ho, Spring is here, but where is my hot summer.

Little know cheatgrass factoid: according to a wild lifer friend, during the first few weeks of it's growth period in the Spring, cattle can eat it, after that all it is good for is catching on fire and crowding out native veg.

Smoke

 

[Casa Escarlata Robles Too]

"April showers bring May flowers" -- they say.

And Mayflowers bring Pilgrims.
It's spring anyway.
Frank

 

[ski3pin]

Blossoms on the peach trees and we just took the snow tires off the Lady's Subaru. When is the next snow storm?

 

[craig333]

Took the top off the Jeep yesterday.

 

[MarkBC]

It's the "nicest" spring-like local forecast I've seen since last year -- High temps of 70+ (°F) forecast for 4 days out of the next 7.

 

[takesiteasy]

Hey, even we might see 70° on Saturday. It is great to see the long winter coming to an end. Tomorrow should be the first day in quite a while that I won't see snow and ice lurking on the north side of things.

 

[ski3pin]

First night sleeping with the window open. Bad news is a lot of folks are still using their wood stoves.