Welcome to Nature Friday where it’s time for us to share a few slices of the emerging spring from around our ‘Hood. As always, we are joining our friendly hosts from Adventures of the LLB Gang. Don’t forget to click on the link to see what other posts were shared.
Today we’re doing things a bit different. Elsa had a major dental procedure and removal of a cyst earlier this week and while she is doing very well, she said she would allow the ‘New Guy’ to to handle today’s post. Wilson was thrilled for the opportunity, with a bit of trepidation but was hopeful he can do a proper job so as to stay in his sister’s good graces. Take it away, Wilson!
Wilson: Thank you, Mum and Ninja. I’m thrilled (and a bit nervous quite frankly) to be able to host today. Blimey…didn’t get the word until late yesterday so please bear with me. In addition to everything else I’ve endured these past 11 weeks since moving here, I find myself in unchartered waters and umm…well I haven’t decided whether or not I like water yet or not. So I’d be really chuffed if you’d bear with me…
Elsa: Oh for crying out loud…get on with it, you buffoon. You’ve managed to waste 200 words blathering on and I’m ready for my post-breakfast snooze. I know Nike is in Missouri…so Just Do It! Sheesh.
Wilson: {Ahem} Right…sorry…just feeling a bit apprehensive-I know I have some big paws to fill today. Let’s see what we have, shall we?
Elsa: Finally! Go on, get with it, man.
Wilson: So temperature wise, it’s been quite smashing. Pleasant temps, loads of bright sunshine. This is the kind of weather I rather enjoy. Spring is moving along, though it seems a bit slow this year. Trees are just barely beginning to leaf out.
Wilson: Mum thought this might be a flowering plum tree. It’ll take a few more days before we know for sure. It makes a keen back scratcher.
Wilson: The maple trees have begun setting their flowers which are littering walkways throughout the neighborhood. They vex Mum because she has to sweep off the patio and front porch frequently but I tried to remind her at least she wasn’t shoveling snow. She agreed with me but Elsa was apparently not amused.
Elsa: Brown nose!
Wilson: I beg your pardon…my nose is decidedly black. It’s a hallmark of us sheepdogs and…
Elsa: {Interrupting} Oh give it a rest, ‘Pony.’ You need to stop taking things so literally.
Wilson: Right, I’ll work on that, but blimey…there’s just so much to remember and keep in check. {heavy sigh} Anyway, as I was saying…spring bulbs continue to do their thing and Mum is quite amused by where they sometimes voluntarily appear. This Scilla clearly wasn’t planted there as it showed up between the sidewalk and an adjoining retaining timber. Mum took a bunch of photos yesterday but didn’t realize the lens wasn’t clean so several of today’s photos are a bit ‘smeary’ with our deepest apologies. But it was so bright outside we weren’t able to easily tell while walking along on our constitutional. Mum say; this plant is commonly called Bossier’s glory-of-the-snow or Lucile’s glory-of-the-snow, but she just refers to it as Squill. It’s a perennial from western Turkey that flowers in early spring. Once it’s finished flowering, it will become dormant until next spring. It’s such a lovely shade of blue, much like the skies have been.
Wilson: Those Squill will become dormant that is, unless a certain rodent, digs it up. There are a gobsmacking amount of these creatures and I’ve quite determined they must be exterminated. Bloody tossers, the lot of them, I say. And they apparently feel the same about me and proceed to race away whenever I get even remotely close (sorry this is another smeary photo). Mum needs to learn to not pull her phone out with her finger over the lens but time was of the essence as they say and she hoped it wouldn’t look too awful when she could look closer at home. Now mind you, I’m a quick, speedy dog but these bloody buggers still manage to escape me. I’ve never even been close to catching them. Mum was not appreciative of my speed…well until she managed to land back on solid ground and resume normal breathing. She said something about agility competition and then grumbled about not enjoying being a human kite. I’ve apologized like a proper gentlemen but these cheeky monsters get my dander up.
Wilson: One of smaller trees that’s fully leafed out is Mountain Mahogany. It’s a small but extremely hardy tree barely reaching 16 feet tall and can be found in Colorado, Utah, northern Arizona and Central California. It’s quite dense and slow growing. I avoided this one because of the cactus planted in front of it. It’s wood is so dense and hard it will not float. If only I could have gotten closer, I’m sure it would make an excellent back scratcher.
Elsa: What is it about scratching your backside amongst shrubs and low branched trees that you like so much, dude?
Wilson: Oh come on…I’ve seen you do it on occasion yourself. It just feels good.
Elsa: Whatever. When I do it, it’s important. When you do it, it’s weirdly dumb.
Wilson: {Huffing with indignation} Well, I never…
Elsa: If only.
Wilson: {straightening his back and puffing out his chest} I see we’ll just have to agree to disagree on this. Mum says she’s surprised I’m not more interested in the flying visitors of our garden. I told her I’m too focused with my duties on squirrel patrol. She was however gleeful there were several of them buzzing around the blue grape hyacinths which she said have multiplied like crazy from when they were first planted and are now all in full bloom. They have naturalized so vigorously; she’s found some on the far opposite side of the garden. She’s hoping they don’t take over like the Lupines did but she’ll worry about that later.
Wilson: On our daily constitutionals, we pass by this tall guy who always manages to make my Mum smile. He seems to look rather sporting and no worse for wear after last week’s snowstorm. I’m sure I could use his help sorting out the squirrel situation around the neighborhood. They wouldn’t be able to easily escape if we worked together.
Wilson: One of the earliest blooming flowers around here are the Pasque Flowers which typically bloom around Easter. They are part of the Buttercup family (and are native to meadows and prairies in many states and is the state flower of South Dakota. The showy part of the flower are called sepals, not petals. Mum gets quite gleeful when she sees them. I took a quick sniff but it really didn’t do anything for me. The buds and stems are soft and fuzzy though.
Wilson: Well that’s all I have this week. Profuse thanks to my sister for giving me this opportunity as she recovers. Hopefully she’ll be back full stop next week for another go at Nature Friday. All of us at the Ranch hope you have a jolly good weekend and are able to see Nature first hand.
Elsa: Egad you bozo…you forget to mention that Mom won this week’s Teaser contest by knowing where it was, first. Thanks to One Spoiled Cat for the cool badge. Sheesh, I guess I need to do everything myself while you’re lazing about.
Live, love, bark! 🐾
****apawss apawss**** Wilson you did a pawsum reeport!!!! Such beeuteerfull flowerss an treess!
Elsa pleese GET WELL SOON!
**nose rubss** BellaDharma an ((hugss)) BellaSita Mum
Thanks for the kind words and get well wishes, BellasDharma & BellaSita. Elsa seems to be doing very well.
Wee happy Elsa iss feeling bettur an bettur…….
Thank you. She’s doing wonderfully and making great progress. 💙
Sorry I’m late. On Saturday, my cold started… it knocked me out Sunday, Monday and by Tuesday I was feeling better but still stayed home from work – so’s not to infect my co-workers. I fear Marc was not so lucky.
Now, as for this past Friday’s wonderful post. Ya done more than great Wilson! As you know, we got snow last Saturday. But it’s getting warmer and warmer this week and there is nothing left of the white stuff… still nothing to mention of flowers, either, though. Sigh. It is SO slow up here in Quebec!
Aww, thank you-Wilson thinks you’re too kind. No apologies are necessary. Hope you both have fully recovered. Green things seem to be slowly emerging here, though the flowers are still lagging behind. Hopefully soon we’ll each be able to enjoy bouquets of tulips instead of the one off daffodil. 😉
Lulu: “SQUIRREL!!!!!”
Java Bean: “SQUIRREL!!!!”
Charlee: “*SIGH* I guess it’s up to us cats to send purrs for Elsa. I feel your pain, Elsa, I just had a cyst removed a few weeks ago and I had to wear a cone for 10 days. It was torture!”
Java Bean: “Ayyyy, we send Elsa tail wags too. But SQUIRREL!!!”
We sympathize with you Charlee. Those cones are the pits, luckily I got by with a t-shirt since it was taken from Elsa’s upper shoulder. Thanks for the well wishes; she’s doing super. We’re hoping to minimize squirrel encounters, otherwise I could end up with a cone!
Intense blue flowers!! Spring here so far has been a very damp squid!!
If it makes you feel better, we received rain yesterday (a rarity) until the temp dropped and just came in from shoveling about 6 inches of snow. Springtime in the Rockies…always an adventure!
Poor Elsa! Hope she is feeling back to 100 percent soon! Wilson did a great job! 👍 I would say he deserves an extra treat and that you all are having a relaxing weekend!
I hope plum tree blooms, they are pretty!
She’s doing great. I swear that girl is like a Jersey chick-loads of attitude with a sweet center core. Yesterday’s walk showed us what a warm day and sunshine can do-we saw a few plum trees blooming! Yay.
Go, Elsa! She rocks 🥰
Yay on the plum trees blooming!
Wilson, you rocked this week’s Nature hike post and I gotta say, Elsa is just keeping you on your toes with her critiques. It’s a tough love, but a love nonetheless.
As for Mama Nature? Good to see she’s showing some color for you guys. It’s snowing up in Canada, just days after ‘the first day of spring’, which kinda makes that sentence a punchline.
Happy weekend to the Ranch!
Aww, thanks≥..you’re too kind. Mother Nature can be quite fickle, no doubt about it. We’ll enjoy the 60’sºF as long as she’s willing to dish them out. Hopefully she’ll gift us with more moisture at the beginning of the week. 🤞🏼 Enjoy the rest of your time in Canada and have a super rest of the weekend.
I did, we did. It got cooooooooold at the end there and snow on Saturday. But a great time it was.
Have a great week
You as well. It’s starting with shoveling the 6 inches here but should warm up decently. Snow in March is sooo much better than in January!
It really is.
Some lovely spring shots and a great job of narration by Wilson. I hope Elsa is feeling better now.
Thanks for the kind words, Sue. Yes, Elsa is doing great and recovering nicely. Wilson…well…he’s still my Pony and trying hard to fit in. Have a great rest of the weekend.
Well done, Wilson! I think that first ‘back scratcher’ is a flowering quince… beware, they have rather sharp thorns!
Thanks, it could be although my plant identifier thought it was likely a plum. Guess it’s a lot like Siri and doing it’s own thing. 😉
I think you did a great job, Wilson. The unusual flower photos were special. Thanks to Monika for that. I hope you feel better, Elsa. Thanks for letting Wilson fill in.
Thank you for the kind words for both Wils & Elsa. Pasque flowers as well as squil are two of Mom’s spring favorites. We hope you and yours have a terrific weekend.
😊
Nice job Wilson! You all found some wonderful flowers!
Thank you! Appreciate that. Hopefully we’ll be able to share more soon enough. Have a wonderful weekend.
Poor Elsa, you have been through a lot with vet procedures lately. Hope this is the end for at least a while! We love the squirrel, almost ruined the laptop when we saw it on the screen! That giraffe is super cool and fun. We love things like that. Hope you have a nice weekend. We are in for five or so days of snow coming up and it makes us super happy at our house! You can keep spring for now. Your GBGV friends…all born in Missouri 😉
Many thanks. Yes, poor Elsa has been through the mill this past month or so. We sure hope you guys get some excellent snowfall! Mom heard about that storm this morning and thought what a perfect birthday gift that would make for sweet Olivia.
Beautiful flower pictures. Give Elsa a big hug for us!
Thank you. Elsa is reaping lots of attention and enjoying it!
We sent a pile of POTP to sweet Elsa….she sure has had it tough. Wilson you get an A+ for hosting today’s blog – good job (don’t listen to what anyone else says!). We are seeing a FEW signs of Spring here but not enough to make Mom happy (yet). We always love seeing “what’s popping” around your community though!
Hugs, Teddy
Thanks for all the kind words Teddy. Spring seems slow to arrive this year, but it’s probably we’re just longing to enjoy tulips, daffodils and other spring offerings. Before you know it, we’ll be broiling in the dry heat and wishing we could have better savored the long spring and winter.
Poor Elsa has been in the wars recently – though it doesn’t seem to have kept her spirit down – so well done Wilson for navigating a spring round up.
She really has. I’m hopeful she’s good to go now. The vet thinks she’ll be a whole new dog. Her scars definitely suggests loads of battles. Poor thing-what a tough life she’s had. I hope she’s over it for a long while now. My bank account pleads for mercy while my heart wants to do whatever she needs to live the good life. Wilson sends his thanks. Have a great weekend, Helen.