Chance and I noticed that the Starlings beaks have turned yellow, a sure sign of spring because when it is winter their beaks are black.Thank you Rachel Carson for that interesting fact.Have you ever read "Silent Spring" ? It's a good book,read it soon.
I noticed the crocuses blooming along our front walk,sunshine yellow pretties greeting us as we come in.The neighbors tree is turning pink with little buds along with our fruit trees and all of the other green growing things.
Are the birds singing in the mornings at your house? The past few morning I have been awoken by the returning Robins singing the sun up.They were so loud the other morning I thought we had seriously overslept but we were fine,the birds were just being the proverbial early birds. And the neighborhood Crows know something is in the air,they have been a loud rowdy bunch too.I think the birds are happy to see spring coming and I could not agree more.
Have you been thinking and planning? Dreaming up the spring time work to be done?
I have been thinking ,wondering ,planning and a bit of dreaming as well. There are plenty of projects still to do here. Here is my list so far.
Spring '11 to do:
Plant only flowers in the bed bed we built last year,the neighbors cats think it is a big litter box so we shouldn't be eating anything grown there.(And since I am moving things due to the cats, they will,being cats,move on to a different spot. Sigh.)
Turn our tree stump cluster into planters. A great friend of mine planted that idea in my head.I was telling her how I did not think the stumps would ever rot or would take many years to do so.She suggested cutting out each stump so it was like a planter or pot.Then filling with soil and planting in them.The idea is the plantings will make the stump rot faster.This makes a ton of sense to me.And besides it will look nicer than the ugly stumps.The idea works along the lines of what is called a "nurse log" ,you see these out in the woods,an old log partly rotten with plants growing out of them A thing that has been part of my entire life but I just never thought about creating one here at home.
Return the bulk of the vegetable garden to the back original garden. I want to give some of the beds in the front a rest from the veggies that suck so much out of the soil. We will have to fence off the garden with bird netting to keep the chickens out.
Figure out what in the heck to do with the odd space in front of the clothes line.This space is almost a half circle kind of pie shaped area where grass never lives for long.It needs some spiffing up.
Build a trellis in front of our big living room window to match the ones on the other side of the house, to give us some shade in the summer. Planning to plant some vines of some sort to grow up the trellis.
Make a trip to Sister's to visit our friends and bring home a bee hive they are saving for us.Then sign up for a wild swarm of bees.This is a huge dream of ours, to have our own bees. They will just add to our ecosystem here so much that it makes me giddy to think about it. The craziest part , I am allergic to bee stings. I have not needed an Epi-pen but one more sting and I will. I have great respect for the bees and I am hoping they will understand that. The bees that come to our garden and I have been able to learn to work side by side peacefully so couldn't that happen with our own hive? I think so. It's all about being fearless and respectful.
The list looks like a lot of work but when I look over it, its not any bigger than the lists from the past couple of springs. It's all things that can be done within chunks of time over the next few months.Before I sat down and laid out my list I was thinking I was running out of things to write about but after looking things over it looks like there are many more postings ahead of me.
This afternoon we have had a break from the rain.We opened up the windows and doors to the house to let the air in.As I have been writing a cool breeze has been waltzing around filling the house the scent of spring.A nice break but it leaves me thinking of the people across the seas affected by the quake in Japan and the tsunami's that have hit many shore lines. Our thoughts and prayers are with one and all. Be safe and well.
Rois
ahhh! We can learn about bees together! I am getting up the courage to get my neighbors signatures this weekend...something I should of done before buying the bees but oh well.... ::fingerscrossed:::::
ReplyDeleteI feel fortunate that there are two neighbors that keep bees on my street, and today I actually saw a honeybee in some of the crocus down the street. Methinks that you will have a lot to write about, as you folks are always up to something interesting. I too have noticed the birdsong in the mornings, such a treat, even if noisy!!
ReplyDelete