- First Cabernet Sauvignon buds
- First lilac blooms, two days later
- First flax, suddenly in full bloom. Their neighbors to the right are poppies, which later will be beautiful dark-purple companions.
This year, first bud-swell of our first grape — a Cabernet Sauvignon — appeared two days before our first lilac buds opened, and our flax bloomed two days after the lilacs began to bloom. For reasons that for now belong to secret counsel of God, this year’s order of appearance reverses the order we have experienced in previous years.
For that matter, the appearances of the first meadowlarks, then tree sparrows, and then the goldfinches, also seem to me a reversal from previous experience. But I go only by what I see on our own property.
Our altitude is around 1300 feet above sea level.