In just two short days my first born will be 30 years old. Time flies so quickly and seems to accelerate as I grow older. When I was 30 I was restarting college.. and I had a 3 year old. It sounds cliche but it's so true.. it seems like just yesterday, literally, that I looked into her little face for the first time. And I can still remember thinking how odd it was that I had never seen her before, but I recognized her.
It seems like spring came early this year. We have already had several 80 plus degree days. The pond was up and running a month earlier than last year, and the flowers came early as well. My daughter's lily-of-the-valley bloomed two weeks ago (we call them "hers" because they usually begin to bloom on her birthday week.) Luckily, they are still blooming, but they are at the end of their bloom time rather than the beginning. The odd thing is that the hummingbirds, which normally show up between the second and last week of April only started visiting yesterday. The latest they have ever arrived.
Today I sat for one hour on the porch with my binoculars and iBird Pro at hand. In that short time five warblers visited the pond for a dip in the falls: An American Redstart; a Northern Parula; a Black and White warbler; a "Myrtle" Yellow-Rumped warbler; and a Canada Warbler. They have all visited in prior years, but this is only the second time the Northern Parula has come through. The Red-Eyed Vireo is back as well -- a regular in the neighborhood.
The American toads have shown up again, trilling all night long. And their arrival marks the departure of the green frogs, but only temporarily. They will return when the toads have left the pond and the tadpoles have hatched. As I write this I can hear an oriole way up in one of the ash trees. They also come around in the spring, though they never stick around long, preferring the retention pond down the road.
In three days I will have another echo-cardiogram and another CT scan.
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