Spring green green green and glorious

In moments it will be summertime but for now we revel in spring.

We are watching with delight as a pair of robin's tend their nest. They have built it quite low in the branches of a small spruce tree close to the main gate. There was one perfect blue egg the first day we took a picture, three robins eggs just two days later.

We'll keep you posted.

May days when the meadow becomes a lake.

A haven for hundreds of ducks and shorebirds, geese, sandhill cranes, hawks ~ we must have enough photos now to write our own birding book specific to the meadow. That would be fun! Here are some photographs David has taken over the last few weeks.

Our hummingbirds returned 'home' ~ right on schedule. The swallows are back and working hard to rebuild last years nests or start from scratch...

The meadow is awash in the bright sunlight of late afternoon. It is spring and there are no unbeautiful moments.

Dandilions, buffleheads and late April icicles

Mid April was beginning to look and feel like spring.

By about the 18th we were back into winter weather. Icicles and snow and pretty darn chilly too. We have no fruit trees to worry about thank goodness and our little crop of spinach and chard are doing just fine in the greenhouse, carefully tended by Vincent.

Our ewes and lambs are chomping at the bit to get at some new spring grass. Soon ....

Our feathered friends are back in droves. Surely they are harbingers of warmer days ahead.

Below are some pics David took of our sandhill cranes coming in for a landing ~ and our creek just teeming with ducks these days! Recently arrived are the buffleheads and mergansers who seem to get along nicely with the mallards. They all duck for cover together when the bald eagles appear overhead... (Pics of those guys coming soon, I have to snatch them from David's camera ...)

Hawks and walks and robins ...

Canada geese on the meadow. One of our nesting pairs has returned.

The lambs and ewes are thriving.

And, the warmest back corner of our greenhouse is sprouting the very first of our spring greens. Chard and spinach and lettuce ~ oh my!!

Five new lambs

Missy with her 14 day old lamb; Junior.

Vincent with Junior

Mister ~ the dad!

Tosh and Sheba ~ Snowball's lambs.

David with Sheba. She's just 2 days old here.

And brand spankin' new... Feeder and Clover; the Mrs' lambs.

“… it is Easter morn, And life and love and peace are all new born.” ~Alice Freeman Palmer ~

Lambs and plovers, wind and sun and snow!

Here we are well into March and our March weather is doing all those things it is known for. Missie; one of our three ewes, had her lamb on the 8th of March ~ about 10 days premature. Vincent has done a wonderful job of tending to the little guy and Junior is in fine form now! He's just beginning to gambol and frolic and is nibbling on little bits of his mom's hay.

This is Vincent with Junior.

The next pic is the ewe we call 'The Mrs.' She is usually first to lamb and will no doubt be next. She definitely looks ready and she's an awesome mom.

And a couple of pics of our surroundings these March days... the pussy willows are beginning to bud and the old man's beard (no, not David's beard ~ the kind that hangs on branches :) is coming out from under the snow and frost. We had an early visit from a killdeer ~ wondering perhaps why our meadow has not melted into it's shallow springtime lake. Soon.... soon!