A Chilly Spring

Spring was cool and wet and beautiful.  The longer period of low temperatures also meant a quieter spring...  the bees and other insects that usually come to pollinate our fruit trees were largely absent.  The rest of the farm came to life as the days grew longer, but as the cherry and plum and apple blossoms fell we could see the trees were going to have a year of rest from fruiting.  Hopefully next year the weather will be warm enough for the bees to find us and help turn our spring flowers into summer and fall fruits.

The creek ran very high this year as the snows melted.  It's a bit hard to tell from this photo, but we are way up above in a spot where the creek appears as a small wet ribbon during the dry season.  Here it was a roaring river:

Beautiful hummingbird, a male rufous:

And a lovely female:

I was very happy the kale wintered over so we could have some early garden veggies, and eggs to go with it:

We actually have lots and lots of eggs.  Peak production in late spring is probably over 20 dozen per week:

Friendly (or at least mutually tolerant) chicken and chipmunk sharing seeds scattered by the birds from the feeder above:

I always get so excited when we see a mole.  They are so funny:

Cute chipmunk:

Despite the cooler weather, the trees burst into bloom:

Trillium in the woods are another seasonal marker that spring is really here:

Heavy rain and winds knocked down some big trees in the forest.  This one was probably well over 80 feet tall:

Tiny blooms from the forest floor:

Getting the garden starts in:

The alpacas are always so excited when the grasses become green again and the can enjoy fresh pastures:

The feeder gets lots of colorful visitors:

This color variation was an unusual one (at least for our feeder):

Hyacinths are one of my favorite flowers:

Each year I seem to forget where the daffodils are going to pop up and they always are such a happy surprise when I find them:

Blooms and blue sky:

The chickens are always so relieved when it finally stops raining and the ground dries a bit:

These puffballs smell sweet too:

Peepster (a hen we raised by hand after her mama rejected her) has actually become a very high ranking lady in our flock:

I remember the first year we lived here we were so surprised when these giant peonies popped out of the ground:

Each flower is so big, like the size of my hand:

Fresh spring grass makes for happy alpacas: