Harbingers

It was a beautiful sunny day today. Something to be enjoyed after two days of high winds. Chore for the day: repair damaged shingles. My neighbor who is 80 lost a couple of shingles on his one-story house. And here's a bit of trivia. His house is a Sears kit house. I replaced the shingles. And made sure that everything was well adhered with roofing cement. Then I thought I would adhere the couple of loose shingles on my roof too. But I have a 12/12 pitch on my story and half Cape Cod. I discovered that I can't climb that high. So I called my cousin the roofer and begged him to fit me in. He was a bit amused.


Then unable to resist the sunshine I started prowling around the gardens looking for damage and hoping for spring. And look what I found. The witch hazel is starting to open in the backyard and the daffodils are starting to poke through the cold dark earth.
Even though this is central Ohio and we are normally considered zone 5, the backyard is enclosed with a privacy fence to block the wind on two sides, the house on another and the masonry wall of the garage on most of the fourth. This creates warm spots in that areas that let spring arrive early.

And the area on the south side of the house is a heat trap between the two houses and maybe one - two zones warmer. There are plants growing there that shouldn't be there, perennial fuchsia, holly ferns and gladiolas that I never dig up. Spring comes to this area about 1 - 2 weeks earlier in this part of the garden. Look at the difference in the daffodils. And after a winter that started about six weeks early this year. We're really happy to see these.