Springtime and Morels

Every week that we go out to the farm there are new signs of spring! I have been stating that spring has sprung for several weeks now, but last week we got snow for a whole day. It had been in the 70s right before the snow, so nothing stuck, but for most of the day a steady snowfall fell. This past week has been rather cool, and Good Friday was downright blustery, more February in GA like than April. But yesterday was beautiful, and today (Easter) looks cloudy, but fair enough that we are going to venture to the Botanical Gardens.

Here are the blossoms on a redbud tree. There are several out on the farm, and they are gorgeous right now!

Back in the wooded areas of the farm there are tons of little flowering plants. I need to brush up on my botany, because I don't know the names of any of them, unfortunately.

Along the river bluffs there are tons of little tiny ferns unfurling for the springtime.

Not that the dogs ever stopped getting in the water in the wintertime (except when it was frozen solid!), but now they are back in it full force, and there is lots of water for them to play in. Gus has this very strange habit of hunting rocks in the creek bed, diving for them, and them bringing them to the edge to actually try to chew on! So far, all his teeth are intact, but he loves this game!

Here he is pawing the water to feel for the proper sized rock....

Then he dives in after it....

And carries it to the shore. Typically about this time we yell at him to spit it out, and he'll return to the creek to find a new one.

Mark is constantly finding grape vines in the woods, and takes great joy in cutting them out...they are the midwest version of kudzu. This vine seemed to be aching to be part of a Tarzan scene, so Mark did his best to accommodate. I recently read a student evaluation where the student is described as acting "professor like". The evaluator apparently has never met this professor!

We also went on a search for morels this weekend. We had searched unsuccessfully last weekend as well, but we finally found the elusive fungi this weekend. Here is the first one that I spotted on the ground. Our total take after over an hour of searching was four tiny little fungi, but they were good! We think that it is still early and we marked our successful spots so we can go back and try again next weekend.

These were some other interesting fungi that had sprouted up in the woods.
And this is a false morel, which apparently some people mistake for the real thing??! It is way different, much bigger and bright red. Very cool looking critter to find in the woods. There were four of these things grouped together in one spot, and four of them would have easily been a complete meal for the two of us! Why is it that the tiny little ones have to be the ones that taste so good??