Spring has finally arrived in northeast Ohio—at least we hope so. It could be toying with us. But so far the signs are good. The spring peepers have been chirping in the woods along the creek for a couple of weeks and last week the Trout Lily sprouted up, seemingly from nowhere, and bloomed followed by a succession of other delicate wild flowers. Over the weekend our cherry trees all blossomed—even the Compact Stella that had never bloomed in the five years since it was planted.

I get a little nervous when the cherries bloom. They tend to be overly optimistic. But this year they ignored the couple of warm days we had in March and even the warm weather at the beginning of April didn’t disturb their winter sleep. They even took their time opening up when the temperatures hit the mid seventies last week. Only when it got into the eighties over last weekend did they finally decide it was time to wake  up. The mason bees and bumble bees have been busy working on them for several days now, so hopefully they will have a chance to set their fruit before any late frost comes along to burn the blossoms. I’m looking forward to a tasty summer.