Spring in Our Garden

Virginia bluebells, woodland poppy, and lungwort

Crabapple in bloom, hostas coming up

Muscari

Flowering quince in the herb garden

Love those snowdrops: need to plant more!

Viola planted from seed

Couldn't resist instant color - Knock-Out Rose

Pretty peach daff.

This is my most favorite time of the year - the time I wait for all the rest of the year! I love that soft green just coming on, the blooming trees, noisy mating birds, and best of all, the spring peepers. We can hear them from the creek across the back field. Of course that also means the louder frogs in our pond (and our unopened pool!) But I don't mind. We look for the eggs and then the tadpoles. I love nature!

Smaller male on female. See the strings of eggs?

 To end this post I will share what I saw when I went outside this morning. Five huge vultures perching on our barn. They look rather menacing, don't they?

Meet Our New Granddaughter!

This is our Andrew with his precious baby girl, Beatrix. Isn't she the sweetest thing! (It looks like she has Tad and Klaus's red hair.) They called us at about 10:00 Monday night and said I should probably come over to stay with the other kids. When I got there, Alison was bustling around (through her contractions) getting everything ready to go. We were going to take Tad to our house and a friend was coming to stay with the twins. They were only at the hospital for about two hours, when out she came! No time for an epidural. I guess when you've had three babies already, you know what to do!

She came at just the right time too. Andrew didn't want her to come before he turned in his dissertation last Friday, but they wanted her to come before the 22nd when he does his defense. Boy, these kids have a lot going on! We were worn out just having Tad for two days:) Really he was so good and delightful to have around. Now he is back home and they are settling in. I'll be taking food over. No time for them to cook!!!

Look at the Size of this Egg!

One of our regular eggs.

If Rick had brought this egg in on Friday, I would have thought it was an April Fool's joke! But no, one of our poor hens had laid this huge egg. Most of our eggs are "extra large", but nothing like this. All I can say is "OUCH"!