This spring...

We had the most amazing May... it was hot and dry and beautiful and green! I have never noticed this much green up here... and flowers and trees galore! At the kids school I walked by a tree, which I have walked by almost every single day for the past three years without noticing it, and this year the tree was spectacular. I am fairly certain it is a variety of crab apple but its flowers were red and almost resembled an azalea - and the smell!! It was really amazing.

I think that there have been more varieties of trees and flowers blooming and green showing than in the past years due to our earlier than usual thaw. I don't know when our last frost was - but I think it was near the end of April. I kept expecting one in May - every other year I have planted my garden too soon and then had snow and or frost come along and spoil my plans. This year I kept waiting and it never did frost or snow through May. So I finally planted veggies and a few flowers near the end of May... which is of course, why we got snow last week. Although thank goodness it didn't seem to frost at all and the snow was gone quickly - we are back to normal weather, although a bit rainy!

Another result of our lack of a late frost (at least I think so) are mosquitoes. Before we moved up here everyone kept talking about the bugs up here and how bad they are. I have not been bothered by bugs at all since we moved up. There are certain areas - at marshy lakes and in the woods, where there will be more mosquitoes, but not in my yard. It was no different than anywhere else I have been - until this year. I think that normally the late frost must kill off a bunch, because this year without a late frost - holy crap!! It doesn't matter what time of day or how hot it is - they were out there biting! I am hoping that the snow killed the little buggers because that was most unpleasant.

June has just begun and we have already exceeded the total precipitation that we had for all of May - and it looks like we will be having more... but May was nice while it lasted.