That time of year

I try to take a picture when the crab apple tree blossoms every year and today it is starting to get serious about it.

Plums are finishing.

Cherries are exploding in scent!

The wall o'wood

It's been absolutely gorgeous weather lately. Although the flip side of that is the looming spectre of drought. We could definitely use some steady gentle rain.

uh oh

During the long time (about 2 years) that I was trying to get rid of the big aquarium, we took apart the library table to park the aquarium in that space. The table top was stored in the basement and the legs stayed in the library. Now that I told the person who never picked up the aquarium that they were out of time and the new owner got it I want to reassemble the table...so where did I put the bolts???

There was a case of a rabid feral cat about 20 miles away so I wanted to make sure ours were up to date on their shots. Wow, Trigger is not a fan of car rides; he howled all the way to the vet.

I was going to pick up some straw bales I found on craigslist but all the strings had rotted through and it was just too much hassle to try to haul loose, old straw. Instead I got some more compost from the farm for the little garden. Now to get the neighbor over with his tiller and I can start planting!

"T'ain't dead"

I'm still here! And doing okay now. Quick update: about 6 weeks of near crippling night time back pain - much better now; I just have to be careful not to overdo and I'm feeling fine.

Thursday, April 9, at noon the eggs in the incubator began hatching. 24 hours later and we have 16 beautiful healthy chicks. This was only about 50% hatch rate but I'm not sure why, maybe the rooster was overwhelmed with keeping up with 28 hens? Anyway, I'm happy with 16.

So cute! I had 5 broody hens but all were determined to set in the wall-mounted nesting boxes so I took the extreme measure of removing all the boxes. Only two hens stayed broody on floor level, the other three gave up and rejoined the flock. Last night I took two chicks out and put one under each broody to see if they would adopt. Cloudy did fine, but I couldn't find Twinkie's chick today and was afraid something had got it. Then, on my latest egg gathering I saw the missing chick...with Cloudy! Cunning hen had stolen it away and was contentedly purring. We will have to see if she is so greedy with 14 more.

Spring is fully here and it's looking to be wonderful.