Beautiful Sunday

It’s a beautiful spring Sunday morning in Michigan. My orioles are back, they are eating their grape jelly at the feeder, but I still haven’t seen any hummingbirds. Yesterday I bought a beautiful red wave petunia, just one to plant out front to attract them. Their feeder is full and waiting. The nursery was full of beautiful things but I restrained myself to a bleeding heart, (I don’t have any here), a new heuchera, a small agave, and that petunia. Its so nice to wander through a greenhouse on a day that’s not too hot but all those silly people buying tomatoes and all kinds of annual flowers may be in for many more trips to replace what they plant out too early.

I was talking to the greenhouse manager who is growing some tomatoes for an experimental garden we will have at Extension to see what is disease resistant and grows well in this area. I bought some unusual seeds and wanted them to be grown in a greenhouse so they would be nice and sturdy. The manager was telling me despite the fact that things were a little behind outside they are actually ahead of last year in the greenhouse as far as plant growth. But the farmers have not been able to get into the fields - and the plants they grow for some of them, tomatoes and such, are getting lanky.
That’s going to become a real problem around here soon, its getting late to plant and some fields still look like swamps. Field crop planting is well behind schedule.

I am hoping that some of this water, we have everywhere will dry up before we get any more. Rain is supposed to return mid week. Steve is outside mowing the backyard and I am inside babysitting the dogs. They have to be locked inside because he is doing the back yard, their space, which is about 6 inches high. He goes through the west pasture to get into the back yard so I had to move the horses over to the east pasture so they wouldn’t be in his way- lots of moving and prep for a simple task. The rest of the lawn may still be too wet to mow- he got stuck a few days ago in the front yard on the mower.

The April showers and cool weather have made the flowers pretty. The tulips are blooming, and forget me nots. Dandelions are blooming - and I saw some bumble bees on them. Now if I had more time to work on the yard it would be great. I did get things straightened up on the back porch where some plants over wintered and I started some cabbage seed in a flat there.

I am going to get out later today and go over some of my flower beds carefully to see what survived winter and what didn’t. It looks like my lavender plants are gone and maybe the sage. The roses by the house are leafed out as is the clematis but the roses in my big open bed still don’t show any green. Ferns are coming up but I don’t see any hosta tips yet. I did find some pretty pink violets on the west side of the house where it’s shady. I planted them years ago, but didn’t see any for several years, but strangely they are back. Lose some, win some I guess.

Mr white duck has disappeared without a trace. I have let the horses go down by the pond to eat the last few days and left the gate open to the west pasture for them. He probably went through the gate and once in the pasture he can get through the field fence and wander the neighborhood. He and his friend used to go on walk abouts every spring. Now he wanders alone, I guess. Wild ducks are visiting our pond so he should have stayed. I saw the yellow warblers down by the pond too. That pond is as full as it’s ever been. It’s got to be 15 feet deep or more on the east end.

I was just saying to Steve that it was unusual that we didn’t have any kittens yet and when I went out to feed Friday I heard new kittens crying from under the wild cat’s shelter. They all came out of there so I don’t know who had them. Don’t want to lift that to look either. Haven’t heard anything since, maybe they died. The little black and white cat that comes around from time to time is very pg. She is tamer than our wild cats but very secretive with her kittens. She’ll bring them here to eat when they can walk.

Kittens may be the only babies around here this year. There won’t be puppies and I don’t need chicks. One of the turkeys may hatch eggs but it doesn’t look great for that. No lambs, and probably no foals, although Lily is a little plump. That will be strange - spring without babies.