I cannot believe it but crocuses are up already! Some of them at least, and aptly enough, it's the yellow ones that have sprung. I took these pictures from our garden yesterday and I don't remember ever seeing crocuses up this early. This winter has been utterly exceptional, only few days of snow, a thin white layer that appears for a day but melts instantly, nothing that persists like it should on our latitudes. Weird.
There was a newspaper article this morning about spring statistics, about how its progress has changed over the years. A river that runs in northern Finland has been under scrutiny since 1675, every spring the locals make a note of the ice breakup date (it's been an important route for transport and commerce so it has really made a difference). The records now show that over the past 300 years spring has been pushing back and it now arrives (the ice breaks) two weeks earlier than what it used to. That would be the long term trend. And then there is the short term fluctuations and this winter must have topped the chart in mildness. So it's not just in our garden I suppose where these small miracles happen.
I've been thinking of starting to post photos regularly again. Maybe April.
