Sap weather

Sunny days above freezing, nights down into the 20s F or lower, sun rising higher in the sky each day. Today is Maine Maple Sunday, where you can drive out to the local sugar grove, smell sweet steam rolling sticky off the boiler, and sample maple sugar, maple candy, maple syrup on snow...

Well, I wouldn't recommend the last -- we don't have fresh snow. Stick to ice cream.

Anyway, it's time to tap your maple trees and think of spring.

And in other springy news, we have a crocus bud that may open today -- it's scrinched tight against the foundation, where we never planted it. Migratory plants alarm me just a little.

Crocus!

Yes, that white bud has opened into our glorious first blossom of spring. Well, semi-glorious. Small and shy, actually. But a flower, all in all.

You takes the harbingers that life offers.

In other morning news, I headed out for another bike ride in the crisp morning air -- temp about 35 F, but I wanted to fit myself into the gap between overnight black ice on the roads and afternoon meltwater floods. Seem to have succeeded on both counts. Thus do I tell various joints and tendons that yes, I _meant_ to do that. Get over it.

Approx. 5 miles, 25 minutes.