Tonight it's cloudy but last night the sky was beautiful. At 9:30 pm, before the moon had come up too far, I stood in the meadow facing west. Venus blazed and was actually painfully bright with binoculars, and Mars glimmered red. Polaris and Aldebaran also showed bright.

The whole time I watched the sky (with a few trips inside to check the sky map  for my zip code  at www.wunderground.com), chorus frogs and spring peepers were making a racket down at the pond. They're early season breeders, and this is their moment.

In the garden, the pink tips of my Festiva Maxima peonies are now poking up above the mulch. It looks as though all four bushes made it through the winter.

And the new bluebird house we put up on Sunday? I'm pretty sure tree swallows have claimed it. That's how it goes.