Watching And Waiting For Snow To Melt

Watching and waiting for the snow to melt is tough on a gardener!  It's boring like watching paint dry, but anticipation makes it much more difficult. Containing  the whining and moaning is even worse! Today when the rain stopped, I was very excited to get a chance to venture outside.  The garden is still out of  my reach and covered with snow, but I found some wonderful things growing anyway!

It has been years since Ed built this fence out of  split black locust logs.  It takes some real time for lichens to grow.  With all the  moisture from rain, fog, sleet ...  they are at their very best!  This one has great pale green color and interesting texture.

These tiny spikes are growing on top of a post right at my eye level.  Just like on the corn flakes box the picture is slightly enlarged to show texture!  I'm so happy I didn't have to get down on the wet ground to take this!

I know these lichens have been here for a long time.  With the background of never-ending white snow, oops a little bit of whining there,  I noticed their beautiful color and texture today!

This one is different than the others I think, but I am very interested in the  single file of little spikes growing in a crack in the wood.

On the same log nearby I found these red soldiers.  Wouldn't it be special if those spikes grew to be a line of red soldiers in single file!  Even if that were true, I wonder how long it takes them to grow?

The snow has receded enough to reveal these hens and chicks planted on top of Ed's  curved stone wall.  They brought joy to my heart.  Soon there will be many plants to attract my attention.  I was delighted to see these today!