Spring is Bustin' Out All Over! (publ. 2025-05-24)

The song from Carousel is actually "June is Bustin' Out All Over!" but it is not quite June yet.

The weather here is nice, but still cool, with high temps not quite making it to 70 ℉ yet. The last week or so we have had a mix of partly cloudy and mostly cloud weather, with a little rain here and there.

Last Thursday (2025-05-22) I had a good lunch-break walk along the Tanana dike trails, and I'm saw, not the first signs of Spring, but the first signs of energetic Spring, or early Summer. The little grasses and weeds are growing thick now. And I saw my first wildflowers this year.

12:18pm

I see my first vetch plant that has petals just beginning to unfold. This shrub-like plant is currently about eight inches tall. It is called purple vetch, though the color I'm seeing seems more like what colorhexa calls "Strong pink":

Strong pink on colorhexa.com

An issue I'm having to revisit in my mind, this year, are the differences between violet, purple, and dark pink.

A little further down the trail, I am finding dandelions in full, bright-yellow bloom.

I also make a brief visit to the muddy shore along the north side of the Tanana. The Tanana is low right now, and at this spot there is about 12 or 15 ft of mud and rocks exposed, in between the water and the vegetation.

Further down the trail, I find a few tamarack trees with young needles. The bunches of needles are growing out — measuring along the side of the bunch — about 1 cm, or about 7mm measuring straight out from the center.

The spruce trees are sporting lots of new needle buds, with three buds at the end of each branch or twig, and pairs of two buds spaced evenly inward from that. Each bud is an oval shape, but pointed at the ends, consisting of small, tightly-packed yellow-green needles. The outward half of each bud is covered by a brown cap.

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