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This morning was foggy and wet - every surface of the cold spring morning held as many drops of water as it could.  The dawn temperature was 51°, but climbed quickly through the sixties by lunchtime.  Perhaps it had showered yesterday - we were in Pennsylvania gathered for an Easter weekend of over-eating and egg-hunts, and there it didn't rain.  

Since my intention over the coming weeks is to finish digging and planting a garden, as well as settling in a colony of honeybees, I should start keeping better records of the yearly cycle.  

Of interest to the bees:  After weeks of not much besides maples and skunk cabbage in bloom - here, in the last week of April, the first of the dandelions are beginning to blossom.  The daffodils are probably near the beginning of their peak.  Our few hyacinths are up.  The little blue flowers that I call gentians are mostly past after an uncommonly prolific April.  The violets have been out for over a week - the forsythia for at least a couple of weeks.

The buds on the currants and the quince seem ready to open, though they haven't yet.  The rhubarb is out with leaves a foot across, but no stalks long enough to cut.

The mockingbird was up in the firs, running through its repertoire most of the morning.  Two turkey vultures have gotten into the cat's carcass along the stone wall, and I'm reluctant to go and look at what they've left behind.  (The cat, Wilbur, struck down by a car before Thanksgiving, was buried by Monica, but apparently only deep enough to keep the body frozen through the winter.  Something dug it up after the thaw and nature's clean-up crew has been taking it's sweet gruesome time about returning the poor cat to the cycle.)

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