Spring Ephemerals

Bloodroot and Trout Lily

Warm rain and everything is starting to burst forth.  I braved the damp mist and took a walk today, eager to get out of the house, stir crazy from organizing my tax documents. The may apples were unfurling their umbrellas. Dainty spring beauties, trout lilies and hepatica dotted the edges of the path along the creek.  The mosses and lichen seemed electric in the gray wetness of the day.  Shining out chartreuse and grey green, I kept expecting to spy a leprechaun peeking out from behind a tree trunk.

There are masses of spotted salamander eggs in the vernal pools.  They must have crawled out of their underground hiding places in the first warm rains a month or so ago.  I've been watching them develop, picking up blobs of the jelly-like clusters to take a closer peek.  I think I might put some in a container to take and show to the kids in my programs, maybe keep a few to watch them hatch, then return them to their birth pools to carry on.

Here's what they look like when they are all grown up. So ready for spring and all the unfolding.