Right, so remember on my last post I was telling my inner pessimist to shut up? About it snowing again? After that lovely string of 70 & 80 degree days we had? Frickin’ Michigan. I swear. Doggone it if he wasn’t right!

So, before the 8 inches of snow we got last weekend, I went out into Kensington Metropark and shot some photos of what is easily my favorite time of year. When the trees just start to green up……you look into a stand of trees, and there’s a lovely green haze…you can’t really see the leaves, but the buds are giving the forest world a light, bright green twinge. Very very nice.

Oh, and I’m making the images a bit smaller now. Hope you can still make them out enough to be interesting. Please do let me know what you think.

My favorite bird:

Love these tiny white flowers:

Check ‘im out - talk about sticking out like a sore thumb on the forest floor in spring - it’s a wonder he didn’t get eaten already….

Now this is better camouflage. Little bitty garter snake, playing hide and seek:

I love Kensington. I should make a bumper sticker. Then, on second thought….perhaps that’s an impulse best resisted. Heh.

Check it out: God’s own artwork:

My second favorite bird, the Redwing Blackbird. What a beautiful little creature! (Jeff Corwin, you ain’t got *nothin* on me!) There is a boardwalk in Kensington right on Wildwing Lake where you can watch a whole bunch of these guys building nests and doing “spring bird things” if you catch my meaning.

Lovely.

The missus, sitting:

Clinging:

Preening:

On that same body of water, swans are everywhere. Here’s one getting his ungainly weight airborne:

Two for the price of one:

Mrs. Swan, nesting! How cool! (Geez I’m such a geek….)

Back at “the ranch”, enjoying that day’s sunset over our front field:

Life is good. We are very, very, blessed.