Spring lasts from October through May in these parts, even outdoing the below zero temperatures and all that snow and brrr and complaining down at Safeway. That makes for eight months, actually, giving a good Canadian winter a run for its money. This spring, for instance, began when the hazels bloomed in October, the weeds sat up all green and sly in November, the Hoary Marmot’s rock garden bloomed through the snow in early December, and  pussy willows blossomed out on Christmas Day. It really got a kick yesterday, when the fog lifted for a few hours, before the moon sucked it back out of the lake, to reveal the first party-goers of the year, who’d snuck in under the cover of frost.

Early Reveler Here for the Annual Bachelor Bash
A little wind-blown from the trip north, but here, whew.

American robins surge north and south over the continent like waves of fog. This male might be on his way up to the Cariboo Plateau or to Babine Lake, even, or he might just have come home. Typically, males arrive two weeks before the females, party like nobody’s business, get drunk as skunks on the fermented rotten apples beneath the trees, stagger around, collapse, and just, well, you know, chill.

Robins Catching the Sun and Foggy Frost…
…on the edge of their dwarf apple orchard.

It’s a good thing that human pickers miss a few apples hiding among the leaves. Two weeks after the party begins, the females arrive, everyone splits up overnight into mating pairs, and the camaraderie is over for another year. For now, though, whoo-ha! Speaking of whoo-ha, here’s a Siberian Elm warming to the sun in its own way:

Elm Blossom Buds, Swelling Nicely
American goldfinches (Hint: scroll down on that link.) really love these things. They nip back those tiny purple flowers like cotton candy.

Winter has its own dimensions here, that’s for sure. Even those flowers were there all winter, folded up beneath their scales.

Tomorrow: Renaming winter.