real spring, 4/24

 

 real spring is here !! after a pleasant, but strange, 'fake spring' back in march where the temp went up into the 70's and 80s, now it's really real spring.  the leaves are just starting to pop; the asparagus are up and we're eating them; the crab apple tree went from greenish to PINK in 3 days.  and, we've had some serious rains a couple days apart to get the streams up for sam, the fisherman in the family.  click the photos to enlarge them.

 this display only lasts a day or two, but it's cool when it's up ...
                                    
  the toads are back and singing, and laying  millions of eggs in kit's pond ..

 there's a little shelf holding up the air conditioner outside the metal shop where mrs. robin makes a nest.  she was starting to build on top of last year's, which can be messy and risky, so kit whisked away the old nest and temporarily set it on the top of the grill ... it is an exquisite object, perfectly round in a way that's hard to imagine a bird pulling off.  the clay and grasses are from the edges of one of the ponds, and then the fresh grass lining in the nest below ... perfect ...

 kit think's she'll lay one more today and then start to sit ... beaurtiful !

and i finished stacking next year's wood yesterday ... earliest ever.

and sunday, we did some spring cleaning.  borrowed an 8 foot step ladder, vacuumed off the ceiling fan, the top of the entryway closet and washed the insides of the velux windows !!!  wood heat can be messy, but with oil at $4.00 a gallon, i'll take the mess thank you ... i'm getting the hang of the new blogger interface, but it's a bit of a struggle ... grrrrrr ... i do like how fast the pictures enlarge when you clcik on them.