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Health & Fitness

What's Blooming in Montgomery County?

Snow is forecast yet again for this week. I guess March is the month for broken promises!

Today ended on such a grey note. I grew up in Greenwich, always in and on the water. I can remember heavy snow on Easter Sunday and in the following October, an early fall when walks along the shore in Rowayton already revealed no signs of minnows or other life. That’s what I instantly loved about Maryland…a few more weeks of summer and a spring that came a few weeks earlier. A mild winter here ends in February with everyone sunbathing on the squares downtown at lunchtime.

But what a disappointment today turned into with a supposed promise of spring-like weather. A woman at the doctor’s office said we had all been deceived by the hype. There are hints, however, of the desultory wandering in of spring. The birds and bugs always know.

This morning, there was a neighborhood mob of birds going from each lackluster lawn to hunt for anything left over from last year’s growing season, a flock of European Starlings, with a greasy Grackle or two along for the search, a drab Cardinal and a loud Blue Jay keeping watch. With good reason, as a slim and lightning fast Red Tail chased every one off into the huge oak a hundred feet over our street and the birds all escaped…this time. Our bird feeder has become her personal buffet so we no longer fill it.

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Last week in the sunny weather, I saw my first crocuses, a whole hedge full of Winter Jasmine, and a delicate bank of Snow Drops that must have been lovingly planted by someone quite a while ago to have naturalized thickly all over the lawn. Tulip tips, tiny hydrangea clusters, Virginia Bluebells, hyacinths, forsythia buds, pussy willows, and a half a foot of daffodils were in every yard, but today my poor Brussels sprouts finally expired wanly in the killer night temps of the last week in February. Such confusion! On protected Overhill in Bethesda, the owner’s daffodils were a foot high! Some of the trees on 270 already have a haze of red. I have yet to see an errant Cherry blossom.

Hidden buds, everywhere, will be peeping up soon, very soon, and you’ll be seeing “What’s Blooming in Montgomery County” as I see things happen. If you spot anything special, snap it and send it to me at Catsparrow1@yahoo.com and I’ll include it in my blog. Happy-Almost-Right-Before-Could-This-Be-Spring! Really!

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