Life With The Crew

And Then There's Green!

This week has definitely felt Spring-y!  Lots of yard work was done to spruce up our Airbnbs, some pansies were bought for a bit of color, and yesterday I decided to clean up my main flower bed even though my back wanted a rest.  Glad I did, because last night we had an unexpected thunderstorm and now this morning the sun is shining bright and illuminating all of the florescent green tips.  The garlic is growing, the Hellebores are pink and blooming, and the new garlic chives are telling me its time to cut down the old stalks.  I think the seed heads are so beautiful, so I leave them up all winter.  

In the woods this week, we saw a Mourning Clock butterfly - that was a first for us!  We heard Spring Peepers and Wood frogs and spotted the first Wood frog eggs.  We have been seeing muskrats, a Great Blue heron, Mallards, Canada Geese, and Wood ducks at a marshy wetland on the way to the barn.  It is always exciting to see the male Wood ducks with their rainbow of colors.

And in our own yard, the chickens have taken over.  With the loss of our prey-driven Corgi, Ruby, over the winter, we now only have Lola, the 16 year old Corgi who has always been more interested in the chicken poop, than the chicken, and Wallace, our Romanian rescue who isn't prey driven either.  Last year, one of our chickens was being picked on by the other two and so we had to segregate her in chicken isolation.  After her head feathers grew back (her supposed friends had pecked her head until it bled), she still chose to be the loner and she started hopping the fence.  Even though Ruby was old and slower, she still would go after the chicken, so we didn't encourage the chicken's free roaming ways.  During the snowy winter, she kept close to the coop, but just in the past two weeks, she started hopping the fence again - that whole grass is greener thing.  Well, then we noticed one day that there were two chickens in the yard for short periods of time.  Then this week, we decided, "Why not?"  It is pretty fun to see them in the yard - we'll be reading on the sofa and all of a sudden this black streak will shoot across the yard or approach the back door.  We do get regular visits from a Cooper's hawk in our yard, but these ladies are big enough to be left alone.  And the Red-tailed hawks in our neighborhood have never shown interest in our chickens.  We still have two bantams that are locked up in an Eglu because they would definitely make a tasty hawk lunch!

I'll leave you with a little more green.  This small baby blanket/play mat was knit with 100% wool in "Grass" green.  Happy Spring!

In the Middle

A quick drop-in here at the middle of the month.  As is expected, March is a little of this, a little of that.  The snow is gone from the backyard finally, but the lakes are slow to lose the ice.  Having a difference of 30 degrees between night and day makes it difficult for knowing when to blanket the horse and pony.  Being chilly isn't going to kill them, but I think that if I was 93 years old, I probably would like a little something around my shoulders in the middle of a 30 degree night.  (Frank is 31, which in "horse years" is 93.)  But the grass is getting greener every day!  One of our chickens is a loner and has been jumping the fence and going on walkabouts in the yard.  She didn't bother doing it all winter, so she must be able to see the salad bar on the other side and decide it is worth the effort!

Below are a couple of photos from last week - in the game lands and at Shaver's Creek.  The stone foundation is from an old homestead that is now part of the nature center's trail system.

I've been knitting as fast as I can, trying to get my Etsy shop stocked before gardening season comes and I'll have to be outside more.  I have two new baby blankets in the shop in Spring colors and all of the alpaca items are 30% off.  My shawl is always at hand when I'm sitting inside - I don't know how I kept my neck warm before I became a shawl lover!

Almost

March already.  This March doesn't seem to know what it is, a lion or lamb.  We had 50 degrees, sunshine, and melting snow on Wednesday.  Yesterday was snow squalls and gray.  Today, rather frigid with bright sun.  Keep things interesting!  Despite the still chilly weather, the sun is stronger and the forces of Spring are at work.  On the bird front, the Starlings have returned, the House Sparrows are building nests, the Mourning Doves are more visible (we don't see them in mid-Winter), the Canada geese and Mallards are back on the flooded cornfields and we saw four Tundra Swans yesterday!  Such beautiful creatures.

We headed to the quarry for a sunny day hike.  We hadn't been back that road since we got stuck over a month ago and this time it was still a little questionable.  As long as I stayed on the two bare wheel tracks, I was fine, but it was about 3" of slush on either side that was worrisome.  But we made it!

We have been reading a really good book for nature and early US history lovers - The Wolfling by Sterling North.  We loved listening to one of his other historical novels/memoirs (I believe he calls them historical documentaries), Rascal.  

Enjoy the Spring bird song, soak in the strengthening sun, and as someone I work with always tell me, "Smiles!"