Leafing Out

During the past week most of the trees around the ranch have started leafing out. The Lombardi Poplars have hundreds of tiny little leaves all ready to soak up the sun's energy, as do the white poplars and the willows. It is amazing how the greening of the trees causes the landscape to appear so much more green. The hillsides have been green for over a month now, but the appearance of leaves on the trees adds a whole new layer and depth to the green of the desert. With most of trees leafing, it is interesting to find that the black locusts have not started leafing out at all, they still have the old, brown, dried up seed pods on them, but no green. It looks like they decided to sleep in, not quite ready to get out of bed and enjoy spring. Not that I can blame them at the moment... it's been cold again. Today it hailed outside bringing 18 hundredths of an inch of precipitation. We need the precip though, I just wish it came in the form of warm spring showers. We don't often get warm spring showers here in NV, it sounds nice though.