Resuming the thread: About two weeks later, I headed across the river and into the hills once more. (There had been a ride in between on the first Sunday in May, a charity ride for the local children's hospital, which I do each year. It serves as a marker of spring for cyclists. This year, the temp was 4 degrees, with a stiff north-westerly and 4 hours-plus of light rain. No photos of that, either.)
By the second week of May, the world had turned. All-of-a-sudden, the tulips in Marcia's garden were in bloom, and the birches and maples had opened their buds.
You can see the change in the photos below. Up in the woods in W Québec, the first trillium blooms of the year were splashed along the roadside verges. No red-maroon ones yet, but the big whites are soooo beautiful, and I even found a rare cluster of blooms. The woods are enchanting in mid-May -- the mozzies and black flies have yet to appear, the new leaves are a delicate fresh green, and the foliage is not so full as to block the light of the sun.
No more reports from the woods until mid-June. 'Til then, black flies rule. Back in the day, railway workers went about their work in black-fly season with a smudge pot; hard to carry a smudge pot on a bike, tho'.
