Do I Smell Spring In The Air?

It's still cold here and there's still snow and ice on the ground, yet on sunny days I smell spring in the air - and it makes me happy. It also gives me energy to get more done. This is the view across the county road from my upstairs front window:

Jasmine, Remy and all the other herd members have built up such a layer of wasted hay that they can always find something to eat and something on which to sleep:

Two of the little hens are laying an egg every other day, so I am averaging an egg per day. That may not seem like much, but it's more than I can eat. Soon I'll be cooking them (the eggs, not the chickens) for the dogs again:

Some pairs of fantail pigeons have laid eggs, but it's still too cold for them to hatch:

But they seem healthy and happy:

The cows and horses relax more now that the temperatures have moderated:

What the heck is this? It's last year's Day Lily flower stalks poking up through the snow. I have big plans for growing flowers this spring, though that will mean not letting the chickens out:

The feel of spring in the air has not resulted in me spending more time outdoors, at least not yet. But it has inspired me to do more indoor cleaning - which in turn inspired me to take some pictures of the memorabilia hanging on my living room wall. This was a collection of pieces of work horse equipment, nailed to an old barn board. They were souvenirs brought home from the abandoned farm in eastern Oregon where my maternal grandparents began their married life. We visited it when I was a boy, some time in the 1950s. My grandparents farmed there in the late 1800s or early 1900s:

I used to live near a dairy farm and had permission to hike on the land. I discovered the site where he dumped the cows who had died. I rescued a skull and spent untold hours scraping and bleaching it. Then I glued two horns on it and spray painted the skull white:

And this was a drum I made for shamanic drum circles. Atop it is a feather fan to use when burning sage:

A wooden mask, which I purchased on a trip to Taxco, Mexico. I was buying gifts for friends but got this one for myself:

More of my spring planting fever. I ordered six Yarrow Plants of various colors to plant somewhere (I don't yet know where). One of these days I'll have to post photos of all the plants I've ordered for this spring:

After The Rains

Our long heat wave and drought finally came to an end - not with a deluge but with gradual, gentle rains which slowly brought the land back to life. The east side of the barn, however, was faster to recover as mushrooms sprang up overnight:

Curiously attractive little fungi of several kinds, I found them kind of charming. That they signaled the end of the drought certainly added to their attractiveness:

The new row of Day lilies bloomed:

Including a third variety which I hadn't seen before. This one was called a Pink Paradise, which a friend said would make a good name for a gay bar:

And speaking of flowers, I put more in a vase to brink to church, but this time it was all wildflowers - Purple Loosestrife and Joe-Pye-Weed:

  And the gentle rains brought forth these miniature plants, Dwarf Cinquefoil:

They are so tiny that it's hard to believe they're related to their more common, bigger cousins. A close-up view, however, reveals the similarities:


The fantail pigeons continued to hatch babies and a number of them survived and are doing well. This one, up on a shelf in a cake tin, always seems to be deep in thought when it looks at me:

A parent on a cake tin nest:


This baby was newly hatched on the floor when I first saw it, still almost the size of the egg from which it emerged. Babies raised on the floor initially face more danger but escape the wrath of older birds which babies from high shelf nests endure when they first land on the ground:

The parents of the newly hatched baby (above) rushed over to cover it when they saw me taking photos:

Alas, it's not all good news. My one and only Globe Thistle turned brown and died for unknown reasons. I sprayed it with fungicide, thinking that might help, but it did not. It may be back next spring but if not, I've already got my eye on some new hardy roses:

A Hot Summer, Full Of Life

The Rugosa Roses had few blossoms on them as July began drawing to a close, but the wildflower called Bouncing Bet burst into bloom beneath them to make up for it:

 Our drought became so severe that the few Rugosa Rose buds we had shriveled and dried. This clump reminded me of the scene I imagined when I read of Miss Havisham's decades old wedding celebration, locked in time, from the book, "Great Expectations:"

 The two baby pigeons forsook any semblance of a nest and just lived on the floor - but they grew at an astounding rate:

 Both parents were excellent, rushing to feed them whenever they peeped:

 Two more babies hatched, each in a separate nest with different parents, and lived through their first few days. That made me hopeful they'd grow to maturity, though what I'll do with more pigeons is a question I haven't yet answered:

 The newly planted baby Day Lilies did well and continued to bloom in spite of the drought because I watered them every morning. The first to bloom was this variety, called "Chicago Arnie's Choice:"

 The wildflowers are accustomed to droughts and other natural calamities, and they continued to bloom with abandon. The Black-Eyed Susans began to flower in mid-July:

 And my property was filled with white and yellow butterflies. I had a hard time getting any photos because they seldom held still, and identification was also difficult because there were three common and nearly indistinguishable species for each color. These butterflies, I decided, were called Cabbage Whites:

 It make take a second or two to notice the yellow butterfly in this photo. I decided that this species was Clouded Sulfur:

 But the Canadian Swallowtails which loved my orange Asiatic Lilies were easy to identify and nearly impossible to miss:

 Scenes such as these make summer, even a hot and dry one, a treasure to remember:

 My sister visited and came to church with me on Sunday morning because I would be singing in a duet. This photo reminded me of photos of the two of us as children out in front of our childhood home, all ready for church on a Sunday morning. It also reminded me of photos of my parents as children, taken similarly on summer days with their siblings. Once children, now adults, and things haven't really changed that much except for the natural aging process:

Cleaning and Haying In June

The north field (in the background) was filled with tall grass, all ready to be hayed, so when I decided to clean up the cedar branches and old, rotten lumber from my wall repair, I drove to the wood pile along the outside of the fence. That way I didn't knock down any of the soon-to-be hay. It took two bucket loads to clear it all away:

I was wrong about there not being any baby fantail pigeons. I discovered this one high up on a shelf nest where I just hadn't noticed it before. It's a quiet, inactive bird and quite unlike some of the loud, hyperactive babies which have gotten themselves into trouble in the past. Maybe the parents are just keeping it so well fed it only lies there and burps all day:

Yellow Day Lilies began blooming amid a clump of Peonies. They appear every year without any assistance from me except to mow around the clump:

Out in the pasture, I saw these Common Fleabane flowers. There used to be more of them when I first moved here:

 

 We were predicted to have nearly a week of idyllic weather, and one day my neighbor began lining up his haying equipment on my lawn:

Meanwhile, I began brush hogging the pasture. The tall weeds were hiding the horses' heads when I tried to see if they still had their muzzles on. Furthermore, I was spending several hours each day searching for lost muzzles. It took about six hours over two days to get it all bush hogged:

The wildflowers were pretty, but Buttercups were taking over. They are inedible and increasing because they kept dropping seed. You can see here the uncut portion on the left, and a mowed section on the right. The bush hog cuts rather high, so I am hoping it didn't disturb many bird nests:

But let's face it - a wildflower meadow is a beautiful thing. I wanted a photo of it before I chopped off all those flower heads:

Meanwhile, my two neighbors (a nephew and his uncle) began haying, then tedding. Tedding is when they turn over the cut hay to help it dry in the sun. They had to ted it multiple times before they began baling:

And then they attached the baler, followed by a hay wagon. This year he had a brand new kicker, which tosses the finished bales up in the air and into the wagon, where the uncle caught it and stacked it neatly. I had to take a number of photos to get one which showed an airborne bale, but you can see it in this picture, just entering the front of the hay wagon. Click on the photo if you want to enlarge it:

The horses and cattle ignored all the activity and lounged and grazed peacefully in the south field pasture:

The fantail pigeons were enjoying life in the barn. They are sociable birds with each other and also, in their own way, with me. They know where their food, water and bedding comes from:

The State Of The Perennials

I took a walk around the yard to see how the perennials I'd planted were doing. The Blue Moon hardy Wisteria was awake and putting out leaves. It's planted at the base of a power pole, which I hope it will grow up on:

 The only plant I lost over the winter was a Mandarin Honeysuckle, so I ordered another one. It's still brand new, but already looking better than the one I planted last year:

Last year I planted a red Hydrangea and had some doubts if it would live through the winter. It did, however, and leaves began emerging this spring. Will I see flowers this season? It would be nice:

 My little rock garden is filled with lilies, iris, tulips and a few oddball perennials I planted last year. They all seem to be growing wildly, but especially the Asiatic Lilies. In fact, they seem to be reproducing and may soon take over the whole area:

 A favorite wildflower which grows in the lawn is Birds-Eye Speedwell, a colorful little plant with flowers about the size of small violets:

They are  adaptable plants, growing taller if not mowed but OK with growing shorter if mowed:

And a related wild species, the much smaller Thyme-Leaved Speedwell, growing all over my lawn:

 Thyme-Leaved Speedwell is so tiny that it's easily overlooked. Both species of Speedwell are members of the Snapdragon family:

 One of the two Ninebark bushes I planted last year is doing extraordinarily well, and showing the brilliant leaf colors it is noted for. The other Ninebark, which got a fungus last year, is up and colorful, but still struggling (that's it in the little fence behind the bigger one):

The old fashioned yellow and purple iris are beginning to bud, so I'll soon have them to look at. They were here when I moved in but seem to be doing better because of the compost I've added to the soil:

 You may recall that I ordered 14 fancy Day Lilies from an online nursery which were on sale because the varieties were discontinued. They sent extra, presumably because they were on sale and they wanted to get rid of them. All of them are growing. I'm keeping them more or less weeded for now, but when they grow up, they'll have to hold their own against that tall grass behind them: