I'm sure spring is coming!

Where it once was a frozen tundra, it's now mud.  At least the top two inches is mud; under that it's frozen.  

This kind of mud makes walking a real adventure.  Thank goodness for my Muck boots.  

I almost lost my balance a couple of times, and wouldn't THAT have been messy?  

I know spring is coming, because I can finally see the ground in parts of my yard!  

The trees know spring is coming, too; look at the buds.  

The hyacinth knows winter is almost over.  

So today, I planted tiny tomato seeds in my miniature greenhouse.  There were four spots left after I'd used all the tomato seeds, so I put cauliflower seeds in those.  
Last fall I bought a crepe myrtle tree really cheap; I planted it in the front yard and it seemed to thrive, but in the back of my mind I kept wondering how it would fare in winter:  Crepe Myrtle is really a southern tree.  However, the information attached to it at Home Depot said this was a variety developed for our area.  When the winter weather turned so vicious and stayed that way, I had my doubts whether that tree would make it.   
The best I can tell, it's dead.  It's no big loss; I think I only paid $5 for it on clearance.  But I know not to try crepe myrtle again; it's a tree... or shrub... of the south.