April's This and That

 We arrived back in South Dakota on April 9th. It has been cold (to us) and windy. There may have been a couple of days with 70º temps. The lawns are brown. There are no spring flowers. The trees are very reluctant to begin the budding and leafing process. Spring is late. So I am glad I took a couple of photos of the flowering trees in Oklahoma as we headed north. It is a reminder of what will be coming next month here in South Dakota.

I think this is the OK state tree

The three weeks since our arrival at home have been filled with some routine medical appointments, hibernating, a couple of local geocaching events, a couple of book discussion groups, more hibernating, a little geocaching and some family time.  The E family of seven were together for Easter. We had not all been together since our trip to the Black Hills in July last summer.

We were not around for Miss W's winter band concert but we got to hear the 6th grade band play their 4 musical pieces at their spring concert. We were 45 minutes early for her concert. We got front row seats! (A miscommunication on the time.) Her concert was followed by the 7th graders and the 8th graders that evening.

Miss W plays the flute

(most of those chairs were filled with the 6th graders)

And finally April is a special month because...

Miss W has a birthday!

Hard to believe she is 12 years old

As I mentioned earlier, it really has been unseasonably cooler this month. There has not been any moisture to speak of but rain is in the forecast for this last weekend of April. I checked the flower bed as soon as we got home to see what may have survived, but there was nothing green showing among the dead stems and leaves. We had some more seasonable temperatures earlier this week so I checked the flowers again.

I am always thrilled to see the pasque flower survive the winter. 

One of the columbine flowers survived and is making an appearance. Everything else is slow, late or dead. But then I get it as I have not had the urge to bundle up and get outside and play in the dirt. Flowers and plants will be arriving at the greenhouses this weekend. Our overnight temps have been in the 30ºs. Spring and planting and flowers will just have to wait a couple of weeks.