Ah. Spring.

I have been looking forward to the end of winter, although I am not sure how we got into April so fast? Admittedly, I lost quite a bit of time due to being broken, but April?? Time flies...

My favorite first sign of Spring are the green fronds of the daffodil plants emerging. The whole yard will be brown and dormant, but these brilliant dark green shoots start appearing and the bold color is so refreshing after all the dreary winter tones. I love the flowers too. Shortly after the daffodils bloom, the trees begin flowering and even the 'weeds' in the grass get colorful. Much of our back lawn had wild violets and we have solid purple and white with purple flowers all over the ground.

First the lawn starts showing 'green' a bit...

Look at the green!

There are three deer here. I took this from a distance as, with the bum leg, I'm not too sneaky or quick

And then, of course, the flowers go wild!! 

You can see the door on the run starting to break :( 

With the changing of the seasons, comes the shifting (expanding and contracting) of the earth and other elements. The door into the chicken's run got into the spirit and warped. The slats in the upper section have started to shift and fall. We will need to replace the whole door. It already needed replacing anyway, seeing as the fox ate some of the bottom half of it earlier(!) but now it's really a mess. My first time back in the shed since January was to fetch some materials to fix the door temporarily. It's not perfect, but chicken wire will hold it together for a bit. Enough slats had fallen out that the smaller birds could have flown right on out of there!!

Before

After

 We gotta keep our birds safe.

Stormy

Bandito

Speaking of saving things and Spring... Now that the weather is warmer, we like to keep the patio door open. The patio is screened in, but it's not completely secure from small critters. The cats can't get out, but they can catch what comes in. The other day, Ninja found a mouse and she brought it INSIDE to us. We heard her calling and when Honor went to see what she wanted, Ninja took off with the mouse to the basement!! Honor chased after. I heard a bit of yelling, but soon enough Honor came back with the mouse trapped in a small box. She took it out into the woods and let it go. Ninja was not a happy cat. She spent the next half hour or so yowling about the loss of her toy. We hope the mouse learned its lesson and stays away.

Honor captured a beautiful photo of the lucky little thing...

Another sign of Spring is rain. Of course, because it's been raining since last May, it's not exactly much of an omen this year. The ground in front has not dried our since last year's flood and we've had mud everywhere on the property, so we really didn't get alarmed when the bit behind the carport was wet. Until it REALLY got soaked two days ago and the water pump wouldn't turn off!! It might have just been naturally wet from rain before, but this new 'water feature' is due to a pipe bursting between the house and the well. Sigh. The plumbers are out there now with an excavator to take care of it. But hey, look at our lovely little 'spring-fed' pond (or, you know, burst pipe fed pond... )

The growling noise in the background is a big woodchipper. A neighbor had a tree chopped down yesterday and they are cleaning up today.

Ah well... Welcome to the season of re-birth and new growth. Here's your random cat photo...

Regal Pumpkin