Mary's Motley Minutiae #2

I never know what I'm going to write about from day to day.  People ask if I have to write every day, and, of course, as of noon on June 8, 2012, I don't HAVE to do anything.  And in the words of the Dave Clark Five, "I like it like that!"  However, I do have this fear that if I don't write on one day, I'll find an excuse not to write the next, and the next, etc.  That's kinda how I roll.

So, whether anyone is reading or not, I like to write every day.  Today was going to be a one-topic day, but it suddenly exploded into a Motley Minutiae, so here they are:
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Topic #1:  Monarch Watch - http://www.monarchwatch.org

The butterfly seeds arrived today!  I learned back in the early '80's when I lived down in the little parsonage in a little town on the southwest Minnesota prairie (hmmm...sounds like a book!) that nothing helped a dreary winter day more than getting a seed catalog in the mail, and starting in on summer garden plans.

Today's packet contains Butterfly Milkweed, Swamp Milkweed, Common Milkweed, Purple Coneflower, Joe Pye Weed, Indian Blanket, Scarlet Sage, Tithonia Torch and Zinnias.

Some I've never heard of but here are the three kinds of milkweeds.

So now we have seeds and we can start planning our Monarch Waystation!

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Topic #2: The weather (Surprise, surprise!)  It's another Winter Storm Warning today and tomorrow and the estimates for how much snow vary, but this is what it looks like outside right now:

So one of my friends here in town thought I might need to cover up my yardstick measuring snow depth so we wouldn't go backwards.  Being the realist that I am, I decided that instead of covering it,  I needed to add some length to properly show the 6 or 9 or 12 or more inches they are promising tonight.  So here is my yardstick with a 12-inch ruler taped on the top.  It really only adds 11 inches since I had to overlap 1 inch for stability, but you get the idea.

 If it goes above that, I can't predict what people will do around here!

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And, finally Topic #3: Maple sap is running!

Knowing that this new snow was coming, along with another smaller storm earlier this week, we decided to put off tapping any more trees until later when we hoped it would be easier to get to the rest of the maple trees.  And wouldn't you know, when we looked out this afternoon at the taps we put in last week, the sap was running!  One bucket was nearly full and all others were dripping.

So, ready or not, the sap is running!