Eranthus

The winter aconites have emerged. We planted a whole bunch of new ones last fall in an attempt to finally find a place where they would like to grow. So far they seem happy. The real test will be if they come back next year.
I was not here yesterday because, very uncharacteristically, I overslept - way past my usual wakeup time. I even set my alarm to be sure I got up in time to go to Church. No such luck. I managed to set it to music rather than alarm and then had the volume turned off on the clock radio so I slept blissfully until 8 o'clock. With the sudden return to heavy labor in the gardens I guess I needed the sleep.
Temperatures here have been close to or over 80 degrees F. for the last few days. Way too warm for this time of year. We are getting a lot of cleanup finished from the ice storm. Mostly all done now as far as I can see. I've also been raking paths and even doing a little weeding. I'm glad, though, that it is going to get cooler and more seasonable. Too much of this heat would have plants getting ahead of themselves and then getting damaged in the cold that is certainly yet to come. We have had the doors open and lovely spring breezes throughout the house. (saving on the heat bill too!!!). Yesterday we saw the goldfish in Lake Amanda for the first time this year and frogs jumped in as I got close. The Spring Peepers were singing last night and the pond frogs at the back of the garden were calling to each other from pond to pond. We had a funny frog experience last winter when we had a warm sunny day and the ice at the edge of one of the ponds had melted. We were out for out walk since it was sunny and nice and what did we see - a frog 'ice skating' on one of the ponds. Poor thing had a hole in the ice an nice sunshine and came out for a walk. Problem was he couldn't walk on the ice and was just sliding all ovet the place. We scooted him back to the water and he quickly disappeared back to the bottom of the pond. Don't think he'll try that again.
Blooming yesterday - crocus which weren't even budded the day before, February Daphne - both the species and the white flowered one, Winter Aconite, Hellebore Tibetanus. Pictures of al of these tomorrow. I took them yesterday and managed to delete them all when I tried to download them. Will retake and post the Hellebore pictures of this lovely pale pink species tomorrow morning.
Jane