By Patty Wilber
Yes we are still in a major drought, but this spring is much more spring-like than last spring.
April 2014 Drought Monitor–better than last year and the plants think so, too.
We actually have flowers and some grass. Last spring we had no flowers at all that I recall–until September when we got record rains and the spring flowers came out for fall.
Check out the drought monitor for April, 2013. No wonder there was a lack of growth at this time last year.
April 2013 Drought Monitor–drouthier than 2014.
2010 was a great year for some of the spring flowers around here…
Our North Pasture, 2010
And….look at the drought monitor!
April 2010 drought monitor
You know you can look up any week for years and years.
Say April 1998. We moved to this place in Fall 1997 and got 97 inches of snow that winter (or maybe that was 79) but either way, it was A LOT! So, I figured April 1998 might be a fun map to see…
Okay, no.
April 2000 was as far back as it went.
April 2000 Drought Monitor
Looks like we were still in the arid southwest.
Back to 2014…
North Pasture, 2014. Some horses sprouted. Not a profusion of flowers though there is green stuff on the ground.
Right after all this running about, one Appy buckskin decided to test out her hunter jumper skills (crappy hunter under saddle performance last show not withstanding.) She jumped out of the pasture, uphill over a 4-strand smooth wire fence (so glad we do not have barbed-wire).
Not cleanly, but nothing above a superficial scrape or two. No idea what possessed her! Spring Fever?
LT in the verbena. She looks kind of grown up here. I think she might make a horse one day! After she stops doing goofy things.
Cometa getting the cheat grass before it goes to seed.
Carson (new on the place) out with the bunch. Carson is a mustang! We are having some fun, too!
Here are a few of the 2014 flowers.
Mustard near Placitas.
Paint brush.
Stickseed and a daisy whose last name is “repens” …Googled it. OMGoodness. I actually remembered the name Erigeron repens--Fleabane.
A wild onion. Allium sp. Lacey had onion breath today…
This is the same thing that carpeted the north pasture in 2010. Oenothera sp. Evening primrose.
Gratuitous pic of Carson in the Rio Grande last weekend. I ditched the Da Brim in favor of the ball cap under the helmet…
Spring sunset out the back door.
Happy Spring!
I wonder what the drought monitor shows for California right now… red I’d bet! Glad things are slightly better this year out your way!
Go check it out–one can waste at least and hour or two on that! Fascinating!
Glad the water is better this year. Hey, those evening primroses are USEFUL!
Ooooh more on the primrosoes please!
Things are definitely looking a little better, but I think it’s all from what they got last fall and during a sort of mild winter. The ground around here is so dry and fragile right now!
I agree–very dry right now and those I Think I Might RaincClouds just keep blowing over and gone..
They sure do! Although the weather alert for this weekend looks s/c/a/r/y/ promising…