Here's the culprit

At night a loud PEEP! PEEP! sounds across the pond. It's one of the first sure signs of spring.

That loud noise is made by a very tiny frog.

There he is - the Spring Peeper.

Weeded here, blooming there

I've cleaned out the garden around the Narcissus in back. Now you can see the buds showing a little color.
But up in the tangled weeds by the shed, where I haven't done any work, the first yellow blooms are showing.

Cleaning out the Iris bed

The Winter ice and snow and cold have turned the old Iris leaves white. It is time to pull them out so that the new plants can grow.

I like a job like this - I can really tell that I've done something when I have finished it.
Now I can hardly wait until May when the Iris flowers will bloom.

Sunshine

Today the sun is shining. It has gotten warm enough to go outside without a coat (but you still want to wear a long-sleeved heavy shirt). More flowers are popping out.
We can hardly wait for it to be really Spring.

First flowers

The snow is melting. The big piles are shrinking. Underneath the snow some plants have been growing.
When they finally emerge into sunlight, they open up --
the first crocus!

More ice

The top of the table has a little snow on it. That's nothing special, is it?
There is snow on everything.
But if you look underneath the table....

There is a little wonderland of miniature icicles.

Each little hole in the tabletop has a little icicle dripping down from it.
How fancy and lacy it looks!

Stalactites

I don't have to go down in a cave to see stalactites.

I am sitting in the house watching icicles drip. A drop of water swells on the tip - then SPLAT! it drops on the snow below.

Just like water dripping through the rock of a cave and running down a stalactite.
The icicles are not getting shorter.

They are getting longer and fatter.

Just like a stalactite grows a little with every drip.

When the drips hit something on the way down, new icicles are forming.

At the bottom bits of ice are growing up like stalagmites.

(The 'mites go up and the 'tites go down)

In a rock cave it takes ages and ages for a stalactite or a stalgmite to grow.

The ice ones grow very quickly...drip...drip...drip.