Spring is Busting Out All O-o-o-o-ver!

1 week ago 11

I was working on a post this morning (It begins: “I may be an idiot for bringing this up, but I can’t help myself . . .”), and then a dental adventure took up too much time and energy, so I’ll post it next week. Promise.

So, it’s all about spring and the farm today. And, yes, lordy, lordy, spring is busting out all o-o-o-ver. Recent rains and warm weather have electrified the grass, neighborhoods are alive with pink, red, and white crab apples and redbuds, rabbits are rabbiting all over our yard, and the birds . . .? The birds are something else altogether.

It’s like watching adolescents grow up if you could compress ten years into six weeks. It all started with the avian equivalent of a drug-soaked spring break, when the air was full of male birds crazed with lust and recently acquired freedom. Little boy downy woodpeckers pitched aerial battles straight out of Top Gun. The female doves scattered into the bushes looking for lawyers to sue for sexual harassment. The air was full of what we call “bird song,” and what I’m guessing male birds call SHOUTING: This is MY YARD and MY FEMALE, SO STAY THE &^$(!@ AWAY!

Spring break is still going on with the recent arrivals—last week the rosebreasted grosbeaks, the wrens, the orioles, and the hummingbirds blew in—but the early arrivals are now akin to twenty or thirty-somethings with serious family responsibilities. We have three nests attached to our house: House finches that we can watch out the living room window, a pair of mourning doves in the pergola just a few feet away, and a phoebe in the carport. Best, from my perspective, are the bluebird babies being fed religiously by their parents, in the nest we put up in the upper orchard pasture. (“We,” of course, means Jim, after I said “please put it here.”)

This is the male house finch, who has taken to sitting on the hummingbird feeder, just a few feet from where I sit on the on the living room couch. He flies in and checks out everything going on in the room, just sitting and looking for the longest time. He can see the TV from there, perhaps he has opinions about what we’re watching? He sits, moves his head around to get a good look, while I laugh, Maggie is transfixed, and Skip is oblivious.

Here’s a rose-breasted grosbeak at the feeder. Not the best photo, but what a handsome boy. There are at least 3 of them right outside our window much of the day.

The flowers too are glorious. Three happy crapapple trees cloaked in dark pink extravagances, Virginia bluebells flutter behind the fading daffodils, and our tulips are reminding us why their bulbs were worth a fortune in the 1600’s. In the last week I’ve planted peas, chard, romaine, greens, and carrots. Next up are potatoes, and brussell sprouts. Holding off on tomatoes for another week. It is Wisconsin after all.

Last weekend we went spent some time at the Nippersink or Swim trial outside of Lake Geneva. I didn’t run either dog. At 11 and a half, Maggie is retired from serious trialing (sometimes I see “old dog face” when I look at her, tell me it isn’t so). Skip blew his chance, the last time he ran there, by ignoring a 6-8 foot drop into Nippersink Creek, and scaring the crap out of me when he flew into it at eighty miles an hour and plummeted out of sight. Okay, maybe he wasn’t running all that fast. But still. Every other dog in the world saw the creek as a fence, but not Mr. Wonderful, the dog of many nicknames, including “Suicide by Fence.” Or, creek.

Maggie got to set sheep out for a bit, but she and I both got pretty tired, so we enjoyed catching up with friends, two and four-legged. One of my biggest laughs of the weekend was watching two dogs make their desires screamingly obvious: Look at owner, look at car. Look at owner, look at car. Repeat as if on a loop. Here’s Ness, friend Samantha’s dog, being as clear as a blinking, neon sign. “Please stop yapping at each other and load me up!”

It seems only appropriate in spring to include a photo of one of the farm’s cutest lambs in the world:

I’ll leave you with a few more delights of spring: First, our baby redbud tree actually had 9 (count them, 9!) flowers on it. It’s very young, and this is the first spring with any flowers at all. I have high hopes for next year, although it’s a bit nippy here for them and I’m not sure if they get enough sun. Who knows, maybe 27 flowers next year! (Note: If you don’t know, the flowers are miniscule, maybe 1/3 of an inch wide? Feel free to shake your head and roll your eyes.) Here are three of them:

I’m guessing few will roll their eyes at the year’s first rhubarb/strawberry pie.

The rhubarb;s from our yard, the berries from Burre’s Berry Farm down the road (we’ll have our own soon!). I will admit: I have many faults, and many failures, but I can make a damn good pie.

I’ll leave you with this shot of the sun coming through my gardening tubs while weeding and mulching the day lily garden. (I was going to crop the dead daffodils flowers out of the photo–it seems that deadheading 400-500 blooms takes some time; who knew?–but thought a little realism is in order.