It has been a long hard winter on this mountain (and most of the country, too.) Thankfully we had our power line knocked down only twice, and the place did not burn down. The tops of many trees were broken off and littered the roads and land (did I mention the 70 mile/hour wind and ice storm that came through?) But now all that snow and ice is forgotten and forgiven as the new growth is popping out everywhere. At 2,700 feet elevation, our place is a little behind spring at our home in Roanoke - only 27 miles away, but about 2 weeks difference. But this weekend we saw a LOT of green peeking out. Plus some other colors too - like this very early purple Johnny-jump-up. We cannot figure if it somehow made it through the winter or germinated from last year's seeds and grew really fast to be blooming already.
The dogwood looks a little rough, but this bud is fortunate to be, as it was too high for the deer (which ate just about everything that was not protected by the foot of snow which was on the ground most of the winter...)
We planted some pines last fall and the growing candles (that is what the new grow on a pine branch is called - I just learned that) confirmed that they might just make it. We did loose a white pine to deer... to my surprise, but the lady at the plant shop said when food is scarce deer will eat anything. So much for the "deer resistant plants" list that we have been taking with us to shop for shrubs...
But enough complaining. A day like this reminds us why we built our cabin.
