Less than a week after our last snow (I hope it was, indeed, our last snowfall of the winter), wildflowers are beginning to appear. On Thursday I noticed a few dozen of these tiny bluets (Houstonia pusilla, I think) scattered around the pasture. By Friday, there were several hundred scattered in various places, and many were beginning to emerge in small clusters which is typical for the species. A single small bluet -- a purple-blue flower 1/4-1/3 inch across -- is easy to miss, but a cluster adds a splash of color to the glades, rocky ledges, outcroppings and dry open places where they typically grow. Bluets are native annuals that seem to do a very good job of reseeding themselves.
Another sign of spring that we've been experiencing is thunderstorms. Storms on Thursday evening knocked out our ISP for about 18 hours. More storms Friday night took out our telephone service while I was in the process of making a blog post. Doing anything online has been a challenge the past few days.
