Spring storms and the world comes alive

From a letter to a friend in Upstate New York ... I think about your newly seeded hot pepper plants as I look out on our swiftly disappearing winter wonderland. Every glance out the window, the scene is changed. Grass and ground and great pools of water replacing what was two feet of snow just days ago. My morning walks are no longer accompanied by the crunching of snow underfoot, instead I come back with my boots muddied up to the ankles :) This is such an exciting time of year. We look forward to the sandhill cranes returning, the deer come back from grazing at lower elevations - there are a couple of does (that we are aware of) who come back every year to tend their fawns among the willows at the edge of the meadow. As soon as the snow on the meadow turns to a shallow lake of water, birds and ducks and waterfowl of every description return! The place just comes alive. We lose our winter refridgerator now too. During winter we put our fridge on the porch and unplug it. The great outdoors makes for a great walk in cooler... It saves a tremendous amount of power! But I see that I will have to look after that in the next day or so... no more free fridge. We do have a great cold room in the basement mind you... all year it is cool enough to keep vegetables and butter and cheese fresh. It won't be long before the swallows return. They like to build their nests all over our house so we have to curtail that a little or our house ends up looking like one large swallows nest by the end of summer... We do encourage them because they are the very best defense against mosquito's and they are beautiful! But I'm getting ahead of myself... a little blast of warm air and some ground appearing has me fast forwarded to summer days... Life is good. Our little Bella is getting big and strong! Growing so fast - she is already nibbling on hay and she's a very friendly, trusting little lamb. Just a sweetie... Today has a been a wild day weather wise ~ spring has firmly planted itself around the meadow. The creek has appeared, the trees are green again and we had a wicked hail storm this afternoon combined with some good cracks of thunder and flashes of lightening. This is our front porch littered with hail stones today.