Ferns, the sprouting dahlias, monarda and a few more coleus transplanted. Tadpoles found in a shallow pool at the Fairborn quarry. They were small and tame, and we caught a few to bring back to the pond. At the quarry, some plum trees are in full bloom, scrub cottonwoods with half-size leaves, squirrel-ear-size leaves on the small sycamores. The habitat is so plain: sweet clover, dock, dandelion foliage; cottonwoods, red cedars, stunted honeysuckles (many in bloom). At home, the pink quince came in today or yesterday – I missed it’s first flowers, saw it suddenly all open. Snowball viburnums are in all over town, ours just starting to blossom. Ash leaves well formed, keeping their flower remnants. Black walnut flower clusters, the dark clumps, have fallen from Nate’s tree. Other black walnuts are just starting to leaf. Gold finches continue to feed heavily, grackles, cowbirds and cardinals at the back feeder. Late tulips still hold, the reds, purples and pinks; bluebells and lungwort still bloom. A small frog or toad jumps into the pond whenever I approach. Jeffery Goss writes from Springfield, Missouri: “On April 1, the fields were purple with henbit (no filling), and the first butterfly of the season was sighted. Apricot bloomed April 5, redbud April 7, box elder (catkins) April 8, dogwood April 11, sassafras April 15, lilac April 18. In the insect department: first microlepidopteran approximately April 17, first gallnipper April 22, first mosquito April 24.”