Winter Ice, Spring Birds, Country Views

On Saturday, May 3, tired as you may be of these frigid winter images, there was still plenty of ice out in the Manitou Passage. Only a little way inland, however, birds activity spoke of spring --  a male mallard on a temporary spring pond in Leelanau Township and a pair of common mergansers on Shalda Creek down in the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore.

Flowers are popping out, too, both indoors and out. The little branches of plum brought into the house after my belated pruning of the original plum tree burst into bloom on Sunday morning. As for the chinodoxa, I have some at home, and it's one of my very favorite spring garden flowers, the deep blue reminding me of blue glass, but these particular flowers are not mine but a clump in front of Trish's Dishes in Leland, formerly the home of Stone House Bread.

Yes, the color has been doctored on the two country views below. Both views are along a lovely curve that always pulls my truck over to the side of the road. Early evening on Saturday the prospect was enhanced by a low bank of dark clouds over distant hills.