Last year on this date, I was eating fresh asparagus and we were enjoying some 80-degree days.

Not this year!

When will winter withdraw? This morning, three days into spring, the outside temperature was 17 degrees Fahrenheit at our Rising Sun home. One 50-degree day is predicted for this weekend, but the lows next week are expected to be back in the upper 20s.

Nonetheless, thanks to the strength of the sun, some of the spring flowers are blooming: daffodils and iris reticulata, snowdrops, crocus, and the very first of the glory-of-the-snow with their cheerful blue blooms. The wolfbane's (winter aconite) bright yellow blooms are long over, but the helleborus continues to bloom.

Only a couple of the wildflowers in my home patch are visible; I saw the leaves of one trillium and one shooting star poking out this week. There was no sign yet of bloodroot, usually one of the first to emerge with its white flower opening above a stalk wrapped with a leaf.

Indoors, I have broccoli, cabbage, onion, leek and shallot plants ready to go into the ground as soon as it dries and the weather warms a bit. Last year I was able to plant these, and lettuce and spinach seeds, in mid-March.

Not this year!

Usually by now I can set outside some of the flowers and herbs I raise for my May plant sale. This year the only seedlings that have gone outside are the onions and parsley, and they are on the concrete porch tucked under a row cover to stay warm. The others are getting 12-hour shifts under florescent bulbs as I run out of room!

But despite having nowhere to put them, it's exciting to have new sprouts almost daily! This week it was coleus, fenugreek and summer savory; soon the half-dozen varieties of basil I planted will emerge as well. Meanwhile, the larger plants need transplanting. The lemon eucalyptus (the oil is a mosquito repellant,) elecampane, rosemary and butterfly bushes are in individual pots, as are the parsley, but the stevia, thyme and lavender are awaiting their individual homes.

Most springs I've spent some weekend days dividing and potting outdoor perennials by now, but this year that's been pretty limited, due to rain as much as cold. Fortunately I got some things potted last fall which have wintered well, including liriope, raspberries and lambs ear, but there's always so much more I want to do!

Meanwhile, the honeybees are foraging on any day they can, including some I'd think were too cold and windy. Unlike a lot of beekeepers this year, I've not lost any of my three hives, and actually found them the strongest ever for this time of year when I was able to check them on a (rare) warm day a couple of weeks ago. I did feed them honey from old cappings last fall and am doing so again this spring.

Please consider the honeybees and other pollinators when you turn to your lawns and gardens this year. Chemical lawn care not only is dangerous to human health, it eliminates many of the plants which provide needed forage for bees, including dandelions, white clover, and that stinky purple stuff that's blooming right now (most likely purple dead nettle or henbit, both members of the Lamium family and edible, as are dandelions and clover).

As for gardens, if you must use pesticides, apply early in the morning or late in the evening when honeybees are less likely to be flying, and avoid spraying bee-pollinated crops while they are in bloom.

Attention, horse owners: beware of trees!

Box elder trees have been newly identified as a danger to pastured horses, according to the latest issue of Equus.

Long blamed on ingestion of white snakeroot, seasonal pasture myopathy apparently is (also?) caused by ingestion of box elder seedpods. The condition is nearly always fatal in horses, and most often occurs in younger horses or horses newly introduced to a pasture containing box elder trees.

The link to box elder seedpods was made by veterinarian Stephanie Valberg, according to Christine Barakat's article in the March issue of Equus. A researcher specializing in equine muscle disorders Valberg learned white snakeroot had not been available to many of the affected horses.

But when she inspected the pastures of horses diagnosed with the disorder, she found box elder trees, said Equus. Her further research, which included finding a reference to Native Americans using box elder bark to make a tea that induced vomiting, is a fascinating read.

So do horse owners need to identify and remove all box elder trees from pastures and fence rows? Not necessarily; the article includes some pasture management recommendations, and the danger occurs only in the fall when the “helicopter” seeds are whirling from the trees.

A relative of other maples, box elder grows quickly, has three-part leaves somewhat similar to poison ivy, and sometimes green trunks rather that the more mature brown or pale gray bark. (As a youngster, I got in trouble for rubbing other kids' arms with box elder leaves and telling them it was poison ivy. I could be rotten at times.) Sometimes the leaves have up to seven leaflets, however.

I suppose if you have a horse that cribs on tree bark, these trees might be especially dangerous, as would black cherry trees. The latter are known to be deadly to horses and other livestock when the animals eat wilted leaves from fallen branches and trees.

But cherry trees also indirectly contributed to the loss of numerous foals aborted by mares a few years back. The pregnant mares ingested tent caterpillars which had fed on black cherry leaves, then fallen into the horses' pastures. There, the caterpillars were eaten along with the grass, resulting in aborted or very weak live-born foals. Many horse owner removed all black cherry trees from their properties after that tragedy.

Another poisonous tree horses will eat when wilted is red maple, an eastern species planted here as an ornamental. And beware of yew, an ornamental shrub. At least one horse in the area died in recent months after a homeowner threw yew clippings into its pasture.

Walnut trees also can be hazardous, but horses' exposure to walnut is most often through shavings or sawdust. Horses can be poisoned by eating the shavings – so if you use wood products for bedding, be sure they don't contain walnut, cherry or – now that we know – box elder. Mature walnut trees don't seem to be a problem, though again, if a horse cribs bark, that could be a different story.

Finally, be aware of direct physical dangers of trees. Many of us have seen the photo shared on the Internet of a horse caught in the fork of a tree (supposedly rescued via chainsaw, leaving me amazed the horse didn't further injure herself panicking from the chainsaw.)

Years ago, one of my horses fell in icy weather on a skinny, pointed stump, resulting in a deep puncture just inside her front leg; a few years ago, another ducked under the branch of a fallen tree, trapping himself inside an encirclement of fallen branches. The branch he'd ducked under was uphill and low enough to bump his buttocks whenever he tried to back out – until yours truly came to the rescue and extracted him from his unusual stall.

I also remember cutting somebody else's horse free of a grapevine, though that was hanging from a tree and not a tree itself.

Of course, trees can fall on horses or draw lightning, killing animals standing beneath them, as happened to one Ohio County 4-Her's mare some years back. And all riders know what trees can do to a rider's head!

But the benefits of trees are endless, including the shade they provide on sweltering summer days for those same horses susceptible to all the above.

This blog was updated 3/18/13 to correct an erroneous reference to Barakat, author of the related story in Equus.