Middle Season #11-2026

Lilacs, trout lily, plum blossom in back yard, front yard tulips

 

Ms 11

sat. April 11

1. Robin collecting grass
2. Robins fighting. 
3. Tulips in back yard open

Sun April 12

1. Listening to cardinals and robins just as the sky begins to minutely lighten to the west. 5:50
2. Tulips opening across the front yard and back yard. Big display 

Monday. April 13

1. Butter colored magnolias open
2. Cherry and apple Blossoms open. 
3. Rode to work again in a mist. 
4. Apple tree fully bloom
5. Oak tree in the courtyard has just begun to show some green
6. Yellow dandelion blossoms surround the track at school
7. Sparrows under the bleachers at the football field, enjoying the echoes of their calls
8. I stopped my lunchtime, walk to watch the magnolia tree, lose a blossom every five seconds or so, and enjoying the penumbra on the ground of still white and pink blossoms
9. That red buds fully pink now
10. 1” long maple helicopters
11. The first opening lilacs today. Just one or two blossoms on the head. Heavenly smell. 
12. Are these apple trees on the west side of the swimming pool? Because they’re blooming and they have a soft fragrance smell and they also have leaves small same size as the blossoms.
13. Service berry open today
14. Korean spice bush opens today
15. Brunnera (small blue by front door speckled leaves) opens today

Tuesday April 14

1. Rain putter patter this morning
2. Rain on the small snatch of red tulips along the parking lot of school. Do I hear any RWB beneath the sound of steady rain on the car roof?
3. Full morning chorus or dawn chorus this morning at 5:50. First of Year. Thick blanket of sound
4. Plumb tree with tiny blosssoms today
5. Clematis with tiny fuzzy buds
6. Ginger unfurling
7. The bird bath has 8 pear blossom petals from across the yard floating. 

Wed

1. Storms overnight. Storms in the before dawn. 
2. Serviceberry petals on the black wet driveway. They just bloomed on Monday. Blooms looking bedraggled by storm. 
3. Small birch tree had tiny light green leaves. In the rain. With the sound of cars on wet pavement and RWB trill. 
4. Maple trees have helicopters that are green now flexible not red and most full-size
5. Lilacs mostly fully open. They’re not completely open… but most of it has happened in the past 2 days. 
6. Pear tree blossoms blowing down and all over the yard in the gusty spring wind. Lots landing in the newly planted garden
7. Tulips fully blooming rustling heads in the pre storm wind

Thursday April 16

1. I get up at 5. The birds were already up, singing in the spring showers
2. In this little purple thorn, bush, a red wing blackbird was very bright red a lot investigates something inside the branch
3. Eight very red tulips blooms have withstood all of the rain
4. Mostly the pink magnolias have dropped their petals to their toes and look mostly naked or thread bear or like a dog shedding
5. First sign of life on the locust tree, small knots of green on the hard, nobby branches

Friday April 17

1. Robins singing when I get up at 5…: the cardinals starts it’s pure call that cuts thru it all at 5:40. 
2. And now the mourning dove joins him. Solos against the robin chatter. 
3. Thick fog. 
4. Forest it is green. All the shrubs are fully green. The general impression is green.  The prairie area is green with some tan in the background.
5. Lots of red buds in the forest, all shades of pink and magenta
6. Red Wing blackbirds call and response in the trees
7. 79° 60° dewpoint 52% humidity feels OK
8. Water and salt Creek is high as it’s ever been and flooded into all of the low areas in the forest big rapids in the salt Creek. It’s high and fast with various complexities of water currently on top. many Shoreline trees, dipping branches with leaves into the water, kind of like a hand outside the car window.  Several times I’m thinking “it’s fast!”  Little whirlpool’s forming along the edge, maybe where the fast water is interacting with this slower. Whirlpools spinning fast.
9. Family out walking tiny little baby just a couple days old in a stroller. Mom is talking to you and working with her four year-old kid and a dog. The dad has AirPods in.
10. Trout lily blooming now. Last week just single leaves. This week with open bloom.
11. I’m slowly point slope down all along the bank, our trout lilies, facing off of the directions
12. Black cormorant flying up stream fast
13. When do hummingbirds return?
14. Wild ginger on the forest floor
15. Patches of May apples it seems that when they have two stems with their big leaves, then the round form is underneath
16. Geese out of the fast moving salt creek. Two venture across them upstream along the shore. They try to make it past the bridge that has fast moving water along the edge. But the can’t make it and go back diagonal across and downstream to the shore. 

Sat April 18. 

1. Serviceberry blossoms gone. Azaleas gone. Magnolias gone. Pears gone. Tulips looking very worn. What a. Extravaganza it’s been. 
2. The sun through the plum tree and the white tiny blossoms late afternoon son lighting up, glowing
3. The peonies turned from purple stems to green
4. Crab apples, and red buds in full bloom
5. Trout lilies underneath the oak trees in the public park at Northeast Park and Western Springs
6. Catkins on oak trees in just the very beginning of leaves
7. Lilac fully blooming and smelling delicious
8. Lots of Catalpa bean pods open no beans around down by the tree right now
9. Very gusty afternoon. Two hawks in the sky and several sightings of a turkey vulture tipping around without flapping in the gusts. 

Sunday, April 19

1. 5:32 the sky is dawning already. Yellowish predawn. 
2. The first maple tree helicopters still green on the black asphalt roof
3. Suddenly, the sound of leaves blowing in the wind for the sound of leaves in the wind. Japanese tulip.
4. Poppy buds fuzzily formed with no stem yet

Monday April 20

1. Yellow pink sky at 5:30 again. Robin singing his head off. Not exactly aggressive. More like 7 year old kid trying to finish his chores before he can play. 
2. Everything so green. Crab apples and plum trees and redbuds so primary and bright. 
3. Early morning Sun on redbuds so pretty but sun behind redbuds extraordinary. One of the top things ever. 
4. Sky to west still. Slightly colored. Just nonetheless blue. Pricked with 3 stars and a crescent moon. 
5. Phlegmatic. not feeling or showing emotion
6. perfidy. an act or an instance of disloyalty
7. Orchid Bud got fat and now two bottom petals are relaxing outwards