A Season Of Great Beauty

The cherry tree is producing fruit nicely, but I have been here long enough to now realize the birds will probably eat them all long before they ripen:

The little climbing rose, called Darlow's Enigma, is living beneath the former farm sign framework but certainly hasn't grown much:

The other five new roses have more sun in their spot near the county road, and they seem to be doing better:

The Mock Orange bush never reached its full potential this year, but I'm not complaining - it was still beautiful:

The Ninebark bush truly outdid itself this year:

I was mowing the lawn on the north side of the house when I noticed this lovely scene and stopped to take a photo of it:

Alas, that's when I noticed that the Prairie Rose flowering crab tree has got some kind of disease again this year. It has almost no leaves left:

My crowded little Iris and Lily garden is so full of plants that it's a wonder any of them can live. One Oriental Poppy is blooming this year and the Blue Sea Holly is going gangbusters:

The old fashioned rose I started with a shoot from a bigger rose began to bloom nicely:

And the white Peonies were spectacular:

There was also one red single Peony which I planted two years ago:

I often take pictures of nice dawn skies, but this one may top them all. I was putting the little horses out in their corral just after 5:00 AM when I saw this sky:

June In The North Country

The fantail pigeons have not successfully raised any babies yet, but they are happy and healthy - and plentiful enough that I don't really need any more birds:

 They do, however, keep going through the motions of courtship, nest building, egg laying, etc:

 The lady on the right with the demure look on her face has a particularly nice nest, but nothing yet has come of it:

 The chickens are old enough that their egg laying is much reduced. In all honesty, that's a blessing for me. I simply can't use any more eggs than I'm getting:

Their eggs are pretty though, mostly green, pink or off-white:

 The lilacs began to fade so I took one last photo before those flowers became just a memory:

 The last and perhaps most spectacular bloomer was the Prairie Rose flowering crab. It was in full flower when everything else had quit for the year:

 And I couldn't resist one more close-up of this, its most floriferous year:

Our weather finally turned warm and sunny, so my neighbor came to begin cutting hay. He'd barely begun when he had to return to the gate to replace a broken shear pin. A few hours later, he went over a stump and had to replace a knife. This may look scenic and peaceful, but it's work which is not for the faint of heart:

 The field had already(!) grown to two feet high or more, and was so dense that cutting it was slow:

 But it was a beautiful day in a beautiful location. Life is good:

 And this hay looked like it will be spectacular:

Busy Around The Farm

It came time to begin planting and I couldn't put it off any longer. I began in the spot where I'd removed the giant stump (well, most of it anyway), adding a bit of compost to get me started:

The Globe Thistles were the biggest seedlings, so I began with them:

Then the tiny Chives. Alas, I had to quit at that point, determined to finish planting the other seedlings as soon as weather permitted:

The fantail pigeons began nesting in earnest after I gave them some hay for their nests:

And one new baby was hatched and seemed to be doing well:

The farm was filled with aroma of lilacs and apple blossoms until one day when a skunk got killed in the road. I left it overnight for the coyotes, but when they didn't want it I picked it up by the tail and tossed it into the brush by the side of the road:

Mowing the lawn beneath the apple trees was like passing through a tunnel of flowers:

And the brand new lilac seemed happy with its new home:

The little rose which was supposed to climb up the old farm sign frame, however, needed more sun. So I got out the chainsaw and lopped off many limbs from apple, pear and cherry trees. Then I hauled them to the brush pile in the woods:

The two Flowering Crabs and the wild seeded Golden Delicious apple tree put on a glorious display:

Here are the red Flowering Crab and the apple tree blossoms:

The Prairie Rose Flowering Crab was taking its time to flower but had an extreme abundance of buds. I knew it would be spectacular when they began to open:

The Agony And The Ectasy

This is the northwest corner of my lawn, with two clumps of Lilacs and two apple trees in bloom. A cedar tree and the neighbors' barn show on the left. Views like this are part of the ecstasy of farm life in the north country:

The pink Prairie Rose flowering crab still had only buds, but it is glorious when in bloom:

The agony would be jobs such as cleaning the barn. The tractor is not good at scooping up the urine soaked, poopy bedding hay, so I have to fork it into the bucket by hand:

Then I have to haul it off to the manure/compost pile:

This year's compost pile is on the left. 2017's compost pile was where that brown spot now is. I've used it all up on plantings:


Last year's compost pile is already being used, and I scooped more of it up to use for planting when I was finished with cleaning the barn:

The red flowering crab buds opened fully and the Golden Delicious apple tree with which it is intertwined bloomed also:

A spectacular display, another one of the ecstasies:

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And then to my surprise, the newly planted Bleeding Hearts began to bloom:

Hardy, easy to grow, tolerant of shade and beautiful. It's no wonder that generations of gardeners have loved this plant:

I found a Lilac seedling growing by my back door when I moved here, so I dug it up and planted it at the end of the barn. Then I realized that would not be a good place and moved it again the next year. Now it's doing well and blooming nicely:

To my surprise, it is a different color, more blue than any of the other Lilacs on the property:

Lilac And Flowering Crab Season

Our spring came late, but it came with gusto. A beef farmer up the road purchased my leftover 18 bales of hay, leaving me a rutted place where last year's 88 bales had spent the winter. I used the tractor bucket to smooth it out for next year. The grass and weeds will just be getting started when I cover it all again with a new winter's supply of hay bales:

And then the Lilacs reached full bloom, with seemingly every rural property boasting many historic old bushes:

 They fill the air with their perfume, so much so that one can often smell while driving down a country road. My front and side yards were filled with the wonderful, old fashioned aroma:

I was surprised by what seemed to me to be the early arrival of Tiger Swallowtail Butterflies:

I was indeed surprised, but also thoroughly thrilled by their arrival:

And of course Swallowtails love Lilacs in bloom:

This butterfly preferred the topmost flowers, so I used the zoom lens. I was pleased with the picture which included a substantial amount of blue sky:

My flowering crab trees were hit by a fungus last year and didn't bloom very prolifically this spring, but they did make an effort:

The darker red flowers bloomed earlier than the other variety, and I almost missed getting a good photo of them. I was just in time:

The Prairie Rose, named for obvious reasons if you look at the buds, bloomed sparingly:

But there were a few branches, higher up, which did quite well:

One last spring photo, taken on the highway to Massena, New York. Every time I drive up this hill, I am amused by the big tree on the left because it always looks like a dinosaur. That's my comical version of a leafy Tyrannosaurus Rex. It looks to me like Barney, eating a tree or telephone pole: