Every year's a little different

All these wild roses are on a single bush.

Sometimes the differences are subtle, sometimes blatant but there's always a difference. Most years the wild roses bloom in mid to late May. This year the first ones showed up in the first week of June and they didn't really break out until the past couple of days. Last year very few bloomed compared with previous years.

This year there are multitudes and the multitudes involve plants with numerous flowers on them. Usually you will see one or two flowers per stalk, but look at the picture. That's one plant – eight full blooms and a least five buds, all on the same stalk. This one stood out because it is growing some distance from the huge field behind it, but as I looked around I saw several more bushes with as many or more flowers on them. What made this year different?

     On the other hand my garden is the sparsest it has ever looked. Skeletal zucchini plants, but they still have flowers on them. Droopy lettuce starts seem hesitant to grow at all, onions too. Potato plants stand three feet tall but the bottom two thirds droop sickeningly. Potatoes planted outside are just starting to push through the surface.

Anywhere downwind you can catch the fragrance.

     I didn't expect much from the corn and the bird seed sunflowers were an experiment. They look healthy but not much growth since I put them outside.

    Birds have been strange as well. Last year I photographed as many as 50 sandhill cranes in the pasture near town April 27. I didn't see any this year until day before yesterday: June 6. And, then there were only a dozen and they only stayed a day. Still no occupants in the owl house and this is the second year. Mostly robins around the house and the occasional junco. I see a chickadee flitting among the spruce once in a while. Today driving to town I saw a bird silhouetted on a utility wire. It had the shape I've seen of mourning doves but that would be strange. Couldn't really place it with any familiar bird. Maybe climate change?

     One plus has been the lilac that also has its ups and downs. this year being an up one. Look at the load of blossoms; it's fuller and taller than it's ever been.
     Patience is a virtue they say. We'll see. Some days I want to rip it all out and start over.