Out in the yard again

With a new iPhone and a new computer come disruptions of old habits and the sometimes puzzling fun of working out new ways of doing things. I thought I could blog from the phone and use photos but I'm guessing I need  one more app to complete the equation. But getting photos to my Picasa web albums from the phone is easy, and getting them from there to Blogger on the computer is easy, so maybe it's ok that it's less easy to work the complete process on the iPhone.
I'm spending most of a nice weekend pottering around the yard, cleaning up here and there and rejoicing that my knee has decided that squatting occasionally is ok. Maybe it likes spring too.
I have several different varieties of sedum out front (no longer or never labeled) and was surprised to notice differences in the location of their first spring shoots. I thought of the plants as roughly similar in form but  with different flower and foliage colors. So I expected that they would all sprout from a rosette of leaves at the base of the plant. I was diligently removing old dead flower stalks and stopped just in time on the last plant, when I realized that, unlike the others, it had no basal rosette, but was starting to sprout new leaves on the old stems.
I expect plenty of praying mantises this summer, if the number of egg cases are any indication.
I'm seeing a lot of bird activity. A male house finch seemed to be inviting a female to assess the attractions of our forsythia bushes. One surprise is that, although many migrants have returned, the juncos are still here.
Here's a daffodil: