A Season of Superlatives

Here in Portland we have just closed the door on one of the wettest Marches ever.  Not THE wettest, but pretty darn wet.  And we have had temperatures below average that should continue through the next couple of months.  Wet and cold, just like the last two springs.  Tiresome.

And while it's been wet and cold, cold and wet here we have had to endure weather reports about most of the rest of the country enjoying unseasonable warmth.

And right now, hail is pelting down outside my window.  It seems to me I wrote about hail last April too.   Hah, I just checked and I actually I wrote complaining about the weather into the last days of May.  So you've got that to look forward to.

But this year I don't mind as much, I am even feeling optimistic. Yeah, that's right, optimistic.  Seed catalogs have arrived and the Bean Queen and I have started to plan our strategy for the 2012 gardening season.

And there has been great bird watching so far this season.  Along with the familiar and cute Chickadees,  and clouds of Bushtits swarming the suet feeder.  The usual Scrub Jays, who come to the back door for peanuts, and also several Steller's Jay

Listing these groups of birds reminds me of a favorite book called An Exaltation Of Larks, which gives the names for various groups of creatures, including a murder of crows, of which we also have plenty. 

I have friend who loves crows enough to have a tattoo of one on her back.  And I know they have a revered place in Native American culture as the bringer of corn, beans, and squash.  But I haven't yet developed a fondness for them, particularly when they are cawing noisily outside my window int he early morning hours.