Spring Rains

I mentioned that we were supposed to have rain on Tuesday.  It did come with a threat of severe weather, which I never want.  There were severe storms and tornadoes around the state, but we were very lucky to have the severe weather miss us.

I did think to put my rain gauge up so I could figure out how much rain we got.

It’s spring and green!

It was just right under an inch.

Then there was a bit more overnight.  It made everything green.

We had just put fertilizer down in pasture, so the timing was perfect.

I need to landscape this area this summer.

We have April showers and the blossoms to go with them.

lilacs

crabapple

cherry blossoms

My big plum tree is alive and has a handful of blossoms.

I have been so worried about my oak trees after the rough year they had last year, but both of my oak trees in the yard I was worried about are at least minimally alive.

green stuff on the oak tree

My yard is really growing also.  I have ordered the kit to prepare my lawn mower for the season.

the front yard is out of control

Sky sniffing the tall grass along the trench

For now, Skittles is happy that it is growing.

Skittles loves grass!

She does love her green stuff!

The Start of Gardening

The warm weather means the cover crops on my field have really taken off.  It’s nice to see green out there!

sunset over the fields

I’ve had my little vertical garden going in the house, but this past weekend saw the first of my real garden work outside.

My lilacs survived another drought year.

I was worried when my rhubarb came up so early and we’ve had some cold spells since then, but it seems to be doing well.  I’ll even get to use some of it this year!

rhubarb (I need to harvest the nettle for some soap)

I always worry about my plum tree.  I think I’ve lost pretty much all of the wild plums in pasture with the ongoing drought, and it’s been hard on my big tree, but I see that it made it through the winter.

It has a baby leaf!

The one baby plum tree is still looking healthy.  I do hope it can survive and replace my parent tree.

budding out

Then I checked things out in the herb garden.  I actually had to do some weeding in there.  My wormwood looks good.

wormwood

The sage and oregano survived.

sage

oregano

The rose is alive.  It does not look good, and I think the dog might have damaged it when he was in there (I still haven’t gotten a taller fence put up), but it’s alive for now.

rose

For the first time ever, I managed to overwinter lavender!  I’m not sure if it’s because I put it in a good location or if it’s because we only had ten days of winter and the ground never really froze.  Whatever it was, I’m glad it survivied.

lavender

The strawberries are looking good.  That’s where I had to do a fair amount of weed pulling.

strawberries

Unfortunately, the ground was so dry and hard that the weeds mostly broke off.  But, my hope is that the rain in the forecast today arrived without severe weather and the weeds can be more easily pulled.

Some Random Tidbits

Dolly really likes retirement in the garage.  At almost sixteen, she thinks any temperatures below 50° is for the birds. She prefers the garage with a heat lamp.  I might never get her out of there again.

Dolly smiling about being in the garage

Ms. Goose is fine with most any weather.

Casey is slowing down.  He goes out to pasture, but he spends a lot of time resting.  I might end up trying to find a smaller space for him.

Casey resting on the Back pasture; Perdita and Bubbles on the front pasture

It’s a rare treat, but I do sometimes see Silver Boy out in the north paddock or barnyard.  I’m afraid he’ll never let me be nice or feed him after I trapped him.  But he looks healthy and I do appreciate him here.

Sorry for the bad picture; it was taken through the screen window.

My monstera is putting out a new leaf.

monstera

I have things sprouting and growing in my vertical gardens on the front porch.

garlic

beets

I might have gained another plant or two.

This is my emotional support begonia

One of them is another Thanksgiving cactus my mom started.  This one has red blooms.  That will give me my old pink one, the salmon one she started a couple of years ago, a white one she gave me earlier this winter, and now a red one.

Thanksgiving cactus

In landscaping news, I did find someone who will be coming to fix my yard from the septic people and put in a sidewalk from the patio to the north edge of the Morton building.  I can’t wait to get that stuff done!  There’s always so much going on in the spring.

Warning: If you don’t do blood, don’t scroll past the next three pictures.  I decided this past weekend was time to do the next round of copper and start getting hooves done. I can’t believe how much everyone was showing signs of deficiency.

Athena is losing hair on her nose.

I have to say, I had to get a new baller for giving the capsule.  I couldn’t order the one for the 2 gram capsule anymore, so I went to Amazon and ordered a large dog pill pusher.  It works amazingly!  I love it!

While I was giving copper, I decided to also do some hooves.  I felt really bad about just barely making Flora bleed.  I did wrap her hoof to protect it.

Flora

Then I did my last goat and was going to close and latch the shears, but I got my finger in the way.  Seriously.

It really probably could have used a stitch or two.

I am so hard on myself.  At least I was in the milk room where I have all kinds of medical supplies, so I could bandage it myself.

It did add a bit of a challenge for doing things though.