SPRING!! Look quick or it may turn into summer

Blog posts on rainy days are pretty dispiriting, and there have been lots of rainy days. But today is a perfect day - bright, sunny, temps in the low 70s, projects to do - time for a blog update.  Although two weeks ago we had a hard frost, which destroyed the daffodils that had bloomed, we think Spring is really here.  This was April 29.  (Oh wow! If you click on a picture, you'll get an album, like on FB. And the pix look great.)

This was today.

On to Mama Robin.  She has been sitting diligently, but we're still waiting.

She is very skittish. Friday early evening and this morning I mowed the lawn (Spring is here for sure), and she flew in and out of the nest, perching on the fence or in the box elder tree, fussing and fuming the whole time.  But before that, we had rain, and cold, very windy days. When it was cold, she really hunkered down and snuggled into that nest!! I've already said that I had to take down the yellow tape because its flapping frightened her.  Well, the wind whipping the daylily leaves around had her really worried.  Here she is, looking left and right and wondering if the leaves are really coming for HER. 

Next Friday I'm having a whole-house generator installed.  A very expensive investment, and perilously close to making a silk purse out of a sow's ear.  But it will protect the house, the pipes and the well from a long power outage in winter - over Christmas break, for instance, when I'm away for several days, or for a long storm-related outage (heaven forbid). I have to get out to the fence and lift the plants  that I don't want destroyed by some digging tool.  The violets and spring bulbs and forget-me-nots willl come back, but not the gorgeous hostas and astilbes and columbines that I've given TLC to for quite a while.  So today is the day for serious digging.  I borrowed a small water tub from Berta to keep them all in.

Mowing the lawn gave me a look at what really happened to the back yard after the last stream bank work.  Stan Wheatley made a long swale so that if water comes over the bank way in the  bank,  most of it will drain back into the brook instead of into the house.  But this means the back yard almost has a terrace on it, and it will be hard to mow.  Looks weird, too.  Be careful if you come to visit.  You may be put to work extending the vegetable garden.

Friday I was surprised by wonderful loving Mother's Day gifts.  Alice sent me note cards and memo pads with cute, colorful flower sketches. How Alice finds such distinctive and thoughtful gifts - always just right for me and my life and my tastes - always astonishes me.

Tim and Mike (da Boyz) sent a beautiful box of flowers to the office, so several of my colleagues folllowed our custodian as he delivered the box ("Who's getting flowers??") and there was oohing and ahhing. They're just beautiful. I loved being able to enjoy them over this whole weekend.  And I loved having my "mom-ness" called out.

Tim and Danielle's wedding anniversary was this month, and Alice and Pat's, and now it's Mothers Day weekend.  May is a month full of love. (Not that September isn't, too.)