February wetlands

 Is this a view only a Northwesterner loves? I can't help but wonder; it's a bit bedraggled, and soggy, and marshy ... but that moody sky, those bare trees, those flooded fields. There's nowhere else I'd want to be on a late winter day than here, mucking through.

In the sloughs and creeks the reeds are already springing up again, and Pacific chorus frogs were singing in the hollows, even in the middle of the day (that happens on these dark-ish low-ceilinged days).

It's cooler this year than last, but the native plants still indicate that it's warmer than it ought to be. These are evergreen huckleberries; their fruits are typically ripe in August. Last year, I found some blooming in January - February still seems too soon.

And it's a bit early for Oregon Grape, too, for that matter.

...to say nothing of red flowering currents (though, to be fair, this was the only one this far along, and it's positioned in a particularly sheltered - and therefore warmer - spot than its brethren in this park).

All day the sun was playing hide and seek in the clouds ....

...the moody skies threatening rain every half hour - but it never fell ...

... and in the relative warmth of these shadowy hollows, life is already springing forth, green and fresh from a short winter's nap.