Autumn Be Damned: THIS Is Peak Foliage Season In Vermont

You might have seen me write enthusiastically about this time of year in past springs, but I can't help myself.  

A rainy spring afternoon Wednesday in my St.
Albans, Vermont yard. Even "bad" weather is
simply gorgeous this time of year. 

So, I write about it, take photos and shoot videos two of which you can see at the bottom of this post.

We're now experiencing what I regard as "peak foliage" here in Vermont. 

No, we're not having a super duper early autumn. You can relax. It's just that the moment when everything blooms and turns green in Vermont is simply magical. 

I just like this spring peak foliage even more than the one in the fall. It's in many ways more beautiful than fall colors. And bonus! There's not so many tourists blocking the roads.

In a way, I'm glad that the total eclipse of the sun that drew perhaps 200,000 people to Vermont hit on April 8, not May 8. Early April is not Vermont's prettiest season. At that time of year, the trees are bare, the grass is still mostly brown and there's lots of mud underfoot.

Now that we're into May, the gorgeousness of the season is all around us, everywhere you turn.

Flowers after a rain storm this week in my St.
Albans, Vermont yard,. 

The hayfields are the most luxurious green imaginable speckled by countless yellow dandelions. 

The farms in the Champlain Valley now have the same quality, color and texture of a red carpet look on an A-list celebrity created by one of the world's top designers.

If somebody like Christian Siriano should ever come to Vermont for inspiration, now's the time to do it. 

Every routine thing we in Vermont do this time of year feels like a special treat. 

Driving home after work into Franklin County the other day, I noticed all the multitudes of sugar maples, with their job of providing us with sap and syrup done for the season.  

All those maples seemed to be celebrated by unfurling billions or trillions of tiny leaves, which will eventually grow into the thick lush greenery of summer. The way all those baby leaves glistened when backlit by the sun looked like an immense green fireworks display. 

Brand new sugar maple leaves in St. Albans, Vermont. 

Pulling into my driveway in April and early May, I'm greeted by an audience of happy yellow daffodils, bobbing slightly in the breeze as if delighted that I had arrived. 

It's an optimistic time of year in the world of nature. This natural green hopefulness is a refuge from the human world, the one with way too much war, cruelty, hypocrisy, insanity and stupidity. 

I usually get up in the morning pretty early, often around or a little after dawn to let Jackson the Weather Dog outside to update himself on how spring is progressing.

Full light hadn't hit yet, but the yellow daffodils and deep blue hyacinths glowed in the early morning dim light, as if  powered by some internal electric current. 

The robins at that hour give us a chorus of happy morning music. Somewhere, a cardinal's loud "shpur schupr" call echoes across the yard. That's only outdone by the caw of a crow atop a poplar tree, inviting a couple crow friends over the enjoy the morning.  

Forget turning on the TV morning news for updates on the latest madness in Congress, or the war death toll, the latest dumb criminal trial, or the convenience store holdup. 

The early morning spring birdsong, the beautiful organic aroma of blooms and mud and new growth, and all that green punctuated by colorful flowers is all the news I need this time of year.  

It is a little sad that nature is the only island of sanity in this world. But I take what I can get, and embrace it. You can't ignore such a special time of year. 

Videos:

I planted tons of daffodils around my St. Albans property over the years. You can't welcome spring without daffodils, so I went all out. Following video also has a brief cameo from Jackson the Weather Dog, who was studying the effects of a sunny day on daffodil growth.

To view video, click on this link, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Next up, various glimpses of spring in Vermont, as our surroundings develop endless shades of green, with other wonderful pops of color. Again, click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that:

Longing For Color: Photo Shows Exactly Why We Look Forward To Spring

A beautiful spring evening in my St. Albans, Vermont 
back yard. Photo taken on May 5, 2023.  Click on the 
image to make it bigger and easier to see. 

The snapshot photo in this post was taken in my St. Albans, backyard on the evening of May 5, 2023.

As far as composition and artistry and all that, the photo isn't much. But this time of year, I can't help just staring at it. 

The colors! As we are in this especially drab, gray, relatively snow-free winter, you're going to want to click on the photo, make it bigger and stare lovingly into it. 

The greens, with the speckled blue sky and the pops of yellow from the daffodils just bring such joy and, I don't know, ahhhh.

In three months or so, we will be free from this imprisonment of monotonous gray, brown, and dirty white.  With any luck, by early May, our surroundings will look something like the photo in this post. 

By the way, if you want more spring images to warm your heart, I've added a video to the bottom of this post. 

Anyway, sure we had blue skies for a change on Sunday, which were extremely welcome. But by February, we all wait desperately for the color that true spring brings. 

Click on the photo to make it bigger and easier to see. The late afternoon/early evening light and shadows in the photo bring out every possible shade of green. It helps that the tiny new leaves have that tender new born sort of bright baby green. 

You can see that the lawn could stand a mowing, but that tall grass looks so luxurious.  If I'm not mistaken, Jackson the Weather Dog that evening spent quite a bit of time rolling around in that grass. Which was a great idea. So I joined him. 

Whether you admit it or not, you would have done the same. 

 Check out that sky.  Sure, the beautiful blue skies on Sunday were a nice switch from the weeks of gloomy overcast we had, but Sunday's sky was still a cold, winter blue. 

The springtime blue sky in the photo has a benevolent, warm feeling to it. The scattered clouds complete the painterly feel of the atmosphere. They also have a vaguely unstable look to them, as if promising some springtime showers. 

You might guess from the photo that I like daffodils. Those pops of yellow just make me happy every spring. I have varieties that bloom early, mid-season and late to keep the show going. 

My only regret is I only have about 600 or so daffodils planted on my property. I wish I had thousands. Worse, I ran out of time to plant additional ones this past autumn. Well, there's always next year.  

I have lots of photos of my springtime gardens. My excuse for having the photos is it helps me plan improvements to the property. 

But frankly, I spent an embarrassing amount of time in February looking at those photos as entertainment. Just to take my mind off winter. Even winters as mild as this one has been.  

I know many people like winter. There's a lot of reasons why people would. But those green spring days and evenings  are absolutely heavenly. If there is a heaven, I hope it looks something like what's in the photo.

Video: Spring images from 2023. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

A Needed Soaking Rain (Allegedly) Heading Toward Vermont

A gorgeous Saturday evening among the peonies and 
irises in St. Albans, Vermont. 

 As we often do on Sundays we're looking ahead to the weather week ahead.

If forecasts are correct, it could end up being blessedly wet.  

Rainfall totals Monday through next Saturday could exceed 1.5 inches in much of the state.  That is, if nothing goes wrong with the forecast. 

Droughts and near-droughts sort of have a habit of being self-sustaining, so in the back of my head, I worry that the expected rain might not pan out. 

That's not really a scientific statement, more of a gut feeling, if you will. 

Before we get into that, I want to give a shout out to the perfect June weather in northwestern Vermont last  evening.

After a day that started out dark and drizzly, then became unsettled with sun, clouds and scattered showers, the late afternoon and evening ended up being quintessentially superb June. 

The sun was out, the temperatures were perfect. Bees buzzed among the gorgeous peonies and irises and it was just such a pleasure to be out in the gardens. Saturday evening answered the question I often ask in January when it's ten below: "Why the hell do I live here?"

Last evening is why. 

LOOKING AHEAD

Today's going to be pretty nice, too.  We'll see a fair amount of sun and comfortably warm temperatures. It could hit 80 in the very warmest spots. There could be a bit of haze in the sky from the ever-present wildfire smoke, but any smoke will be high aloft and pretty thin. Especially compared to last week. 

That's not to say today will have no blemishes. There's a low risk of an isolated pop up shower or two. Already, as of 8:30 this morning, a little batch of showers was zipping through the Adirondacks, and could bring some brief light rain to central Vermont later this morning. 

Monday:

Forecasters are backing off on the speed of the next oncoming batch of storminess, which, like the thing last week, is destined to stall pretty much overhead during the rest off the week. 

 Fun fact: Last week's stalled system was cold, and produced snow atop Mount Washington, New Hampshire for seven days in a row. The total snowfall up there was 8.4 inches, making it the snowiest June on record at New England's highest peak. 

In any event, since the next thing is slower, we might eke out a decent day on Monday. Clouds will probably increase, but we could make it into the low 80s before the sun gets blotted out of the sky by the clouds - not smoke - toward the end of the day. 

Tuesday:

Monday night and Tuesday morning offers our best chance of a soaker. The storm's initial weather front is at least at the moment forecast to be pretty wet.  If this pans out, Vermont could see a widespread half inch to an inch of rain between midnight Monday night and early afternoon Tuesday. This would be cool beans to say the least, as the rain from last week's system was just kind of meh. 

Some sun might break out, especially west of the Green Mountains Tuesday afternoon, but there will be some lingering showers. 

Wednesday-Friday

The storm, in the form of an upper level pool of cool air will then stall nearby.  It'll be a rehash of last week. Except it will be slightly warmer and hopefully slightly wetter than last week.

It looks like showers and a few thunderstorms will blossom each day, peaking in the afternoon and evening.  From this vantage point, the showers look like they might be pretty numerous, especially on Wednesday and Friday, but we'll see.

Rainfall Tuesday night through Friday has the potential to add another half inch or more of rain to the week's total. Though it will be variable. Some places will get cheated out of many of the showers, while other places get bullseyed repeatedly. I can't say who will be the winners and losers, it will just be the luck of the draw. 

If there's thunderstorms, they're unlikely to be severe, though there might end up being isolated instances of hail or gusty winds. 

Although it will be a bit warmer than last week, it will still be cool for the season, with daily highs between 65 and 72.  It should be well up into the 70s, to locally near 80 this time of year.

Video: A Garden Gets A Drink Of Water Before Another Long Dry Spell

Water beads on plant leaves after the last rain we had
on May 24 in St. Albans, Vermont. Video in this
post shows a garden and trees enjoying 
some gusty rain showers. 

 A quick hit this morning, just a video showing a grateful garden in St. Albans, Vermont getting a little drink of water from the sky this past Wednesday. 

It's been dry lately and getting drier. We got about a third of an inch of rain Wednesday, which isn't much, but we'll take anything we can get. 

Since Wednesday, the air has been bone dry with wall to wall sunshine. This state of affairs is pretty much expected to continue through Thursday at least. 

We have a shot of a few showers at the end of the week, but whatever comes does not look at all impressive, at least according to the latest forecasts. 

The gardens are getting pretty dusty, and I'm spending a lot of time on irrigation lately.  I guess that will continue all week with warm to hot temperatures and continued very low humidity. 

Eventually, it will rain again. There are hints in the long range forecasts of possible cooler, somewhat wetter weather in the second week of June. We'll see about that. 

Meanwhile, we can watch the video as sort of a rain dance for our Vermont gardens and farms. The rain and wind kind of made look like the trees and gardens were dancing. 

At the end, the sun comes back out for a quick evening visit. 

Click on this link to watch the video if you don't see the image below. Otherwise, click on the image below to watch: 

Gloomy Days Are Still Really Pretty In A Vermont Spring

Wet flowers and spring leaves in a rainy St. Albans,
Vermont garden on Sunday 

As forecast, Sunday was a washout in Vermont. 

A steady, soaking rain fell all day. We kind of needed it, as the middle of the month was so warm and dry. 

Of course, a rainy Sunday meant outdoor activities were pretty much not going to happen.  Or maybe they could, in a limited sense anyway. 

Unlike in, say, November or March, a rainy day when everything is sprouting for spring isn't all that gloomy. As you can see in a couple photos in this post and the video below, there are pops of color everywhere. 

I've intentionally planted a lot of perennials around my St. Albans, Vermont house that bloom early in spring. After a long winter, I need some green and some bright colors. This year is not disappointing. 

Emerging sugar maple leaves on a rainy Sunday in
St. Albans, Vermont. 

It's way ahead of schedule. Leaves are sprouting on most of the trees already.  You usually don't see that until we start getting into the second week in May. 

Sure, the poplars are early birds and spring to life at the end of April. But not the sugar maples and beeches. They're usually smart enough to wait until May. But not in this warm spring.

I got a good idea of how ahead we are this year when one of those "memories" posts came up on Facebook. 

 It showed my gardens on April 23, 2018.  My gardens are bigger now than they were then, but I still had a fair number of daffodils. 

But on this date in 2018, the shoots were barely out of the ground. There were no daffodil blossoms to be found. And the trees in the background of the photo were as leafless as they would be in January. 

As long as we don't get a hard freeze, I'm OK with this early spring.  Like I said, I need some life and nature around the house. 

Rainy day garden in St. Albans, Vermont. 

It does look like the pace of spring will slow down for awhile.  Remember, in one of yesterday's posts in this here blog thingy, I said that we're in for a long stretch of mostly cool, showery, weather. 

That remains true. Although we might get a bit of a break from the showers toward Friday and Saturday, there's no super warm air in the forecast for the foreseeable future. 

This cooler weather, and the more leisurely pace of spring, will let us savor the season all the more. 

Maybe the cooler weather will also postpone the black flies, which would be nice

I've got my video ready for you. Hope you like the rainy garden tour. 

Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Video: April Heat Wave Pushes Spring Along - Fast!

Budding daffodils in St. Albans on April 13, the start of 
a record heat wave. Within two days, they were in full 
bloom as spring raced ahead in the warmth. 

 During the bout of record heat around my place in St. Albans, Vermont on April 13-16, I went out daily to document the jack rabbit fast progress of spring under those weather conditions.   

The change was dramatic, as you can see below in the videos I took during that spell of weather. I didn't necessarily shoot the same scenes each day. Some days I did, other days no. But you can see how the landscape changed.

Some of the trees ultimately leafed out by April 16, earlier than I've ever seen in Vermont before. And I've lived here all my life so far, 60 years to be exact

The video almost looks like four weeks went by instead of four days. 

Click on the image below to see the video. If you don't see the image, as some devices won't show it, click on this link to watch the video.  Talk about spring exploding in one fell swoop!

 

Last Spring Time Lapsed To Get You Ready For The Change In Scenery This Year

Last spring in St. Albans: How it began

I love to watch nature. It's part of the DNA of a person born and raised in Vermont, I guess. 

During a change of seasons, mostly spring and fall, you see changes every day in the way the landscape looks. Sometimes the change is so subtle you have to really stare to find it. Surprisingly often, it's a jarring change from the day before. 

Spring is especially like that in Vermont. Each spring unfolds differently than all the others. Each one has its own personality.  But it always does arrive, sometimes enthusiastically, sometimes grudgingly. 

Last spring wore both those faces. The first half of spring had to be dragged kicking and screaming into Vermont. Frequently, we had snowy setback in the spring of 2022. Including one on April 19 that buried my yard - and some new daffodils - under 5.1 inches of snow, 

During that slow first half of spring, plants soldiered on. The grass ever so slowly turned green.  Daffodil shoots timidly rose upward from their winter slumber. Winter weather and snow be damned. 

The second part of spring galloped in. The season seamed to rebel against that April 19 snow. The weather moderated immediately after that, then turned downright warm as we headed into May. (We'll just ignore that last brief snowy setback on April 27.

By mid-May, we were in the grip of a mid-summer type hot spell. Temperatures for three days in a row got into the upper 80s, and stayed on the sort of warm, humid side after that. 

And how last spring ended. Deep snow on the ground
now, but soon enough it will look like this in Vermont. 

If anything in nature hadn't made its seasonal transition by then, it hurried up and put on its summer clothes. Well before Memorial Day, spring was over, summer started prematurely.

Gawd knows how this year will work out. It's starting out with a lot of stubborn snow on the ground, but that doesn't mean all that much. 

All I know is this spring will be unique, just like all the others. I've already started taking daily photos. 

The first days of meteorological spring in Vermont have been challenging. As I wrote this on March 15, there's 17 inches of snow on the ground. That's far deeper that at any point during the just-ended winter. 

But, hope springs eternal, pardon the pun. That 17 inches of snow has already started to melt away. Soon, there will be daffodils, then lilacs, then a lush green landscape. It'll happen in a blink of an eye.

So, for encouragement, what follows is how last spring went in St. Albans, Vermont, so you can see for yourself. I hope it gets you revved up for what this spring will eventually brin. 

Here's the video. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that:

The Annual Autumn Vermont Garden Disassemble Is Like A Natural Theatrical Production Closing

The closing fall act of part of my gardens in St.  Albans, Vermont.
Time to tear it down for the season and plan for an even
bigger, better show next season.

 I'm always a little sad this time of year when a Vermont gardening season ends for the autumn.  Like the feeling you get at the end of the best play or movie you've ever seen. 

I'm mostly a flower gardener, so I picture the growing season as a theatrical arc. 

The opening act of the show are the early springtime crocuses and daffodils, and end with asters and surviving sunflowers. In between, a big cast of actors, I mean flowers, have their big moments.

My husband is a theatrical set designer. When a play runs its course, and it's time to close it down and disassemble everything, that process is known as "strike."

So as the air cools, what's going on in my Vermont gardens is "strike."  It's time to tear everything down, and lay the groundwork for the next big production, which will of course open next spring. 

Garden "strike" is a lot of work. You have to cut back the dead and dying perennials, heavily mulch the most sensitive plants, protect the evergreens from marauding winter deer and other animals. That's just the start. There's tons of other tasks to complete before the snow really flies. 

"Strike" is an all hands on deck activity in the theater, and in the garden. 

As much work as it is, and the regret we feel from the annual loss of garden color as winter sets in, there's a lot of positives. The annual autumn ritual of "strike" makes me feel in tune with the seasons, with nature, and its cycles. .

I have ADHD, which makes routines a challenge for me. Ma Nature forces me to pay attention to her routine. I'd better act on her directives or else. If I don't the next gardening theatrical production collapses. 

The chit chat during a theatrical strike often involves what went right, and what went wrong with the just-ended production.  The conversation also looks forward to what the crew will do for the next play or show. How to make the next performance even better than the last. 

It's the same way in a Vermont garden this time of year. It's time to assess, and plan what to do next year to make the show better, more spectacular, able to draw a crowd. 

During the garden strike, I tear out a fixture that once worked great, but no longer does. The plant is now ugly, or doesn't fit with the scheme anymore. It's often too late in the autumn to put something in the failure's place, so that goes into the plan for next year's show. 

The show will get bigger, so I'm adding beds. And throwing in some bulbs to expand the early spring cast next April and May. 

Some of the actors will have new roles. For instance, over time, some nice ferns have gotten lost in a sea of larger flowers where they are now. Time to transplant the decorative ferns into a shade garden, so they can have a starring role for a change. 

Theatrical strikes move quickly.  It's amazing how fast an entire set is taken down, disassembled, and stored away neatly for next time. Just like the theater, I'm under a deadline, too.

Everything has to get done before the snow flies and the ground freezes. Winter is part of the production, too.

Now that I'm getting my ideas together, winter will be a time of table reads, set designing, rehearsals and other preparations.  After all, it's only a matter of time before opening day arrives in the theater that is a big perennial garden. 

Feeling The Season Way Ahead Of Schedule Agaiin

Really early for this. Yesterday, March 23, I got to work 
expanding a perennial bed while daffodil shoots 
were poking up nearby. Springs in general do seem
to come a lot earlier than they used to.

 This is anecdotal, but honestly, spring keeps coming so much earlier than I remember as a kid in Vermont. 

The setbacks to the season seem harsher as a result, but there's no denying spring ain't what it used to be  - like in my childhood memories of spring in Vermont during the 1960s and 1970s. 

I was out in my yard in St. Albans, Vermont yesterday. What I was seeing was probably what right about April 10 looked like a few decades ago. It certainly didn't seem like March 23. 

Lots of early perennials were poking up, some already two inches or so tall.  The yard was completely free of snow and the grass in protected corners seemed to have a new sheen of green.  Robins were engaging in ongoing turf wars. The ooze from mud season was just starting to ease a bit. I was actually able to begin work on expanding one of my flower beds. 

I have no illusions it will just be flowers and butterflies and warm breezes through the rest of the season.  Brief excursions back into winter are inevitable, and are in the forecast. (Mondays lows should be in the low teens, highs in the 20s. Brrr!) 

Some springs are, and will always be warmer or colder, earlier or later than others. We'll even have a daily record low temperature here and there, though those are, and will be more rare than record highs. 

Spring, in general, is warmer and earlier than it once was.

I might eat my words, but we'll probably never again have an April like 1972, when only five nights in Burlington stayed above freezing and it got as low as 2 above, still the coldest reading for April on record.. (For comparison, so far this March, nine nights remained above freezing in Burlington).

We also, thankfully, probably will never have a May like 1966, when 11 of the first 14 days of the month saw subfreezing temperatures. 

I wonder, though, what the next weirdly warm spring month will look like.  Will we outdo March, 2012, when we had a week of temperatures in the 70s and low 80s? 

Will we someday have some of the first leaves on the trees in early April?  When I was a kid, the first trees to turn green didn't do so until early May. Now, that usually happens around the third week of April, at least in the banana belt Champlain Valley. 

Sometimes, global warming is referred to as "global weirding."  The extremes get, well, more extreme, or at least more odd.  We've certainly seen that in recent Vermont springs.

In late February, 2017, we saw temperatures in western Vermont reach the low 70s, far higher than anyone had seen so early in the season.  Then, two weeks later, the Pi Day Blizzard dumped close to three feet of snow on those same "mild" towns. 

On April 9, 2019, I saw trees around my  yard sag under the weight of freezing rain. In 2020, another warm spring was interrupted by a snowy Mother's Day.

Last year, spring was way early, with flowers blooming all around my yard on April 20.  By April 21 and 22, five inches of snow had smushed the flowers into the ground and blinding snow squalls swirled around my house.  Two days later, it was warm, snow-free, as if nothing wintry ever happened.

All these changes of course have far broader implications than me just saying "Gee whiz'" to myself in the gardens. 

This is another screwed up maple sugaring season. It started early, but I'm not sure all sugarmakers were ready for it in February.  Then a long warm spell last week probably at least deteriorated the quality of the season, at least for some producers.

Early springs lead to premature blooming of apple trees and grape vines and such. Those crops end up vulnerable to late frosts, which still regularly interrupt these milder springs. 

I've always been particularly in tune with nature, the change of seasons, how the landscape changes day to day.   At the risk of having my Vermont card revoked, winter isn't necessarily my favorite season. The honors go to spring.

The weird springs give me mixed emotions, but most of those emotions are tinged with misgivings. Sure, who doesn't love hints of greenery in a Vermont garden in mid-March?  But then you worry the flowers are coming up too soon, and will get wrecked, like my too-early lilacs did during last April's brief snow and cold.

Flowers around my house are the least of anyone's worries, including mine. Climate change is now affecting everyone.  It will hit is harder in the years to come. How hard is too hard?

 

It'a Beautiful Peak Spring in Vermont, And Kinda Into Summer Now

Flowers blooming in my St. Albans, Vermont garden
this morning. It's peak spring! 

It is such a pleasure to be outdoors this time of year. 

The new leaves on the trees are now unfolding so fast you can almost watch them expand if you just stare at them  Fragrances of lilac and apple blossoms and the organic aromas of new growth make everything outdoors (except for me) smell so wonderful.  

The warm light of peak spring starts earlier than most of us get up in the morning and lasts well into the evening. 

Happy birdsong fills the air with eggs and hatchlings in the nests built in the past month or so in the shed rafters, atop outdoor lights and the crooks and crannies of the house deck supports. 

Take the dogs outside, and the roll around blissfully in the cool, sweet green grass.

Only the clouds of black flies that descend as soon as the breeze slackens takes away from this heavenly panorama.

I've always felt lucky to live in Vermont, where we're rewarded with such a glorious time of year after a long winter. I feel doubly blessed this year. The Covid pandemic has so far spared my family, my husband, myself. 

I've never taken springtime in Vermont for granted. This year, that's especially true. 

At this time last year, as the terrible pandemic took hold and grew, I wondered it that would be the last time I would be able to enjoy the season. Like everyone, I was at risk of losing the physical ability to fully enjoy the outdoors. Or lose my sense of smell, which is a real tragedy for anyone this time of year. 

The risk isn't over of course. But I'm still healthy, and I've had my Covid shots. So have my husband, siblings, mother, in-laws.  This all makes this sweet, colorful and busy season all the better. 

Even though it's the height of spring, I also have a broad definition of what constitutes summer, and to my mind we've arrived at that season. 

Oh, sure, we'll still have chilly days. There could still be a late frost. It's not unheard of to snow in Vermont this late in the season, though that's quite rare. 

Hosta leaves  unfurling in my St. Albans, Vermont
gardens this morning

But we've entered our first sustained period of what can easily pass for summertime weather. It got up to 78 degrees in Burlington Saturday, making it the warmest day so far this year. It could reach into the 80s later this week. 

We're lacking the rain we need, but we at least see attempts at the summertime ritual of afternoon and evening showers and thundershowers popping up in the afternoons and evenings. 

The showers will be few and far between and generally light for the next few day, but they'll be there. 

I see a familiar summertime pattern in the meteorological charts, too.  A big northward bulge in the jet stream is developing in the eastern United States this coming week. 

It will bring bonafide heat to parts of the East, with many places hitting 90, with of course those aforementioned 80s in Vermont by midweek. 

Another familiar summertime pattern are what a lot of us weather geeks call "ridge runner" disturbances. Those are little weather systems that ride the northern periphery of those northward bulges, or ridges in the atmosphere. 

As is often the case in the summer, we might well be in the path of those ridge runners later this week. If that's the case, those ridge runners could set off a few more of those scattered afternoon and evening showers and storms by late week. 

Please do yourself a favor and go outside and enjoy nature at its full glory. It'll clear your mind, bring you a measure of piece, improve your mood. Peak spring in Vermont is some of the best psychiatric medicine available in the world. And it's free! 

Mother's Day Flowers, And A Few New Leaves And Buds

 It's Mother's Day, so most of us give our mothers flowers to mark the day. 

Crocuses emerging in late March, St. Albans, Vermont

In terms of weather, it's been a tumultuous spring, with early heat, drought, then snowstorms, frosts, and rains. 

There was even a tornado thrown in there!  

But, hearty Vermont flowers and plants and trees made it through as always, so this post is just an assortment of blooms, buds, new leaves and the like to celebrate our mothers. 

All these flowers are strong, a lot like Vermont women and mothers.

I guess you have to be tough to be a mom, or a flower, if you live in Vermont. 

Enjoy the day moms! 

Billowy spring clouds and a few early daffodils
on April 19

A hyacinth enjoys some April sunshine. 

Daffodils dance in the breeze on a sunny late 
April day in St. Albans, Vermont

More spring daffodils