Signs of Spring

Bees were buzzing and birds were singing. A few days of sunshine was all it took to get our tulips and daffodils peeking out of the ground.

Naturally, it is blustery and cold now but those lovely days a couple weeks back were a welcome preview of Spring just around the corner.

We spent as much time outside as possible, soaking up all the Vitamin D our bodies could absorb. In honor of the seasonal burst of color we'll experience soon, I set up a rainbow variation of a classic baking soda and vinegar science experiment for the kids.

The kids helped set everything up, scooping four piles of baking soda onto their trays while I prepared the jars of vinegar and food coloring

I was pleasantly surprised to see them adding small amounts of liquid at a time and observing the reaction closely. William even commented that the bubbles left behind holes like craters

But after a while Sara decided that using one dropper at a time just wasn't enough...

Without any interference from me, this beautiful mess appeared on William's tray

Everything is more fun when you can do it outside

Unable to resist the urge for instant springtime, I bought a Costco-sized flat of primroses (notice their pretty little heads in the background of the last photo above).

I'm so glad I took a few pictures of their colorful heads because this is what they looked like the following morning.

Chomp

I would have suspected our resident banana slugs (we grow 'em big out here) or the little cotton tailed bunny we've seen hopping into the salmon berry brambles recently but when I counted that 12 primroses been chomped to smithereens and a few had even been uprooted from their comfy holes, the evidence unmistakably led to deer. Note to self:  just because you don't see the deer around very often them doesn't mean they aren't visiting you and patiently waiting for your next pretty flower to bloom.