One For The Record Books

This April has been fraught with extreme weather.  On April 10th, we had unseasonably warm temps in the mid 70s.  Conditions were favorable for the development of severe storms.  Around 8pm the tornado siren in our small town sounded.  We scooped up our cat and our laptops and headed for the basement.  We were lucky on this night as the most severe weather was just to the south of us.  Surrounding areas were not so lucky.  Kaukauna, WI experienced the devastating impact of an F1 tornado.  I found the following video footage on YouTube.

 

Menasha, WI was also hit.  I was amazed at the number of mature trees that had been ripped right out of the ground.  Thankfully few injuries were reported. 

This April has produced more tornadoes than any other April in recorded history.

Eight days later, we experienced a record breaking snowstorm.






A week later and it's now rained so much that we've attracted a couple of new visitors to the backyard.



I'm relieved that April is almost over and hopeful that May will be kinder.

And just for fun, here is a video I took today of my newest piece of garden art.  Look deep into the center of the pinwheel.  Focus.  You are getting sleepy.  You are now under my control.  You will come to my house, weed my garden beds, and mow the lawn.

The Secret Garden

When I was young, my older sister, Rachel, read "The Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett to me at bedtime.  I recall with great fondness the vivid details of Mary Lennox exploring the secret garden at Misselthwaite Manor.  I still think of this book now and again as I work in my own garden.

Yesterday, while on a leisurely country drive with my husband, Jeremy,  we came upon a large pile of chopped up wood alongside the road.  We decided to grab some for use in our backyard fire pit.   I even convinced Jeremy to load in a really long forked branch so that I could bury it like a post out in the yard and attach various bird feeders to it.  What a guy!

While he was busy hauling wood to the trunk, I was busy snapping photos of a grove of pine trees nearby.  As I zoomed in to photograph the branches, I fixed my lens on a small opening between the branches.  It was then that I noticed a bunch of birds flitting around in a sunny clearing beyond the first row of trees.  As I studied the scene further, I realized that there was a small garden tucked behind the pines, almost completely hidden from sight and surrounded on all sides by the trees.  My camera had uncovered an actual secret garden!  How exciting!

Jeremy has been working for the past two years at enclosing our back yard in cedar fencing.  I designed it, he builds it.  I think I got the better end of that deal.  I like to imagine my backyard years into the future, now full of mature plants that block any sign of our neighbors' houses.  A secret garden of my own accessible only to me and those whom I invite inside.

Wisconsin Winters

They do drag on, and on.  This was the view as seen through our living room window on March 20th.  The snow had melted.  The robins had returned and were busy searching the waterlogged soil for worms.  I had begun putting together a mental checklist of the outdoor projects I wanted to tackle this year.
                                                                                                               
And then this happened.
Snow began falling on the night of March 22nd and continued through the next day leaving us with a staggering 17 inches of wet, heavy snow.  The birds weathered the storm in nearby evergreens and left only to quickly fill their bellies with seed or to clean their feathers in our heated bird bath.  I've read that March is the toughest month for birds and this storm really emphasized that fact.

I adore killdeer.  This pair showed up in the backyard a couple of weeks ago.  They just scream, "Look at me!", with their long legs, prominently striped bodies, and bright red eyes.  They scurry around so quickly and are particularly camera shy.  I love listening to them call out to each other.

There is a second killdeer hiding in the above photo.  Can you find it?

March in Wisconsin is like a wild roller coaster ride full of dramatic twists and turns, highs and lows.  One day you're opening your windows and breathing in that wonderfully perfumed, damp Spring air and the next you're shoveling snow.  And so it goes.  Mother Nature may be a bit of a sadist but patience has shown that she always relents.