Cautiously creeping farther from winter...

The weather really is a boring topic, especially for a blog.  But I really need to mention that it hailed four times yesterday.  And today, it was so warm and sunny, I thought it would be fun to barbecue for dinner.  But by the time the coals got going, I began hearing the hiss! hiss! hiss! of large raindrops hitting the fire.  It all went downhill from there.  In Oregon there is a saying- if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes.  I imagine lots of places have that saying, but this next picture is a good example.

Here are some things coming to life in our yard right now, all of which are native plants and don't need any help from me, thank goodness.

Big-leaf maple...

Douglas fir (which is the tree on the Oregon license plate)

Oregon grape (the state flower)

Sword fern

And my deck chairs, which were prematurely brought out and cleaned off, rained on, hailed on, then re-stacked and put back under the eave.  Oh, well!