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Ha! It was really working on being spring here, but yesterday it started snowing again. We were only blessed with an inch or so, but you should have heard my normally proper wife cuss.

We got snow last night…supposed to warm up soon though.

It sleeved yesterday. A bit hard to take after spent a couple of days in AZ last week. I don’t think this winter will ever die.

A bit hard to take after spent a couple of days in AZ last week.

Hrm. James Lileks spent some time in AZ last week as well. I wonder…

Walked the dogs this afternoon and could see and hear kids playing outside most of the way. Trees are blossoming, lawn is reviving, spring is in the air. We could actually use a bit more rain/snow though.

I live in Elk Grove, California. We’ve been in Spring for two months already!

I’ve read that pollarding not only extends the life of the tree into near immortality, but that it also enables a great deal of assorted wood resources to be taken from the tree without killing it. There are many very old trees in England due to wise stewardship such as pollarding.

Thanks for the info. I have a crab apple tree that I ‘should’ do that to, have to do that to, to keep it out of the power lines. Dang thing really produces worthless crab apples, though I have seen recipes for crab apple pickles. If only I can keep the apple maggots away.

Huh. I never knew that. Everybody does this to mulberry trees around here but I’ll bet you 50 quatloos not even 1 in 10 know why they do it. It’s just one of those “everybody does” things.

49F and driving rain in Baraboo, WI.

Central Virginia. Tulip populars have blossomed, sugar maples are about to flower, and the spring ‘peepers’ have been trying to find that “special someone” (or many “special someones”) for a couple of weeks. And a sure harbinger of spring – I removed the year’s first deer tick from my leg yesterday. Ah, the joys of dogs and woods.

Spring in Da Swamp happens in January and February, where we have the temps that civilzed climates are getting now. Then, on March 1, Somebody throws a switch, and we’re back to nasty sticky heat until Christmas.

The old saying is true: “Two seasons in Noo Awlins, January and Summer.”

Cool and wet spring here in San Antonio. My three citrus trees are thriving—the new growth is so green and perfect it almost looks like plastic. But the area pollen storm has nearly killed Husband, and he can claim personal responsibility for Kimberly-Clark’s over the top sales bonanza.

Get some advice before you go ahead, Admiral. If you pollard an old tree that has never been pollarded, it sometimes kills it.

Any idea how old the willow trees are at Badger House?

Hi Deborah – no idea, I’m afraid. If one ever dies (and one might – it looks like it’s on the way out) I suppose we’ll count the tree rings.

You know – one claw, two claws, lots…

The weather in the IOW has been absolutely spectacular. It’s still a bit nippy in the shade but in the direct sun it’s amazing. I was out in the West Wight yesterday and it looked like something out of a postcard. Down on Ryde seafront last week there was literally not a cloud in the sky. When the weather is good here, it’s really, really good.