Spring Has Sprung

The herb garden needed watering (in March!).  The huge rosemary bush has been blooming and full of bees for awhile.  I'm always so happy to see the bees; so necessary for so many plants and trees and the colonies have been dwindling the last few years.

Trying new plants and flowers is always iffy up here.  Ground squirrels and voles eat the bulbs.  Deer eat the plants.  It's either arid or freezing, too hot or too wet.  I had such hopes for the peonies Deb and Craig gave me last year, but one never knows.  Thus it's been so exciting to find each of the five plants come out of dormancy and up out of the ground.  The Kids probably worry about my sanity as I've sent them pictures as each little sprout appeared.  Peonies die back completely and I wasn't sure the plants would return.  It was a huge relief when I saw the last one poking up yesterday.  Going back to the house to turn on the sprinkler (in March!), the lilacs were irresistible.  They fill the air with perfume.  Butterflies haven't found them yet, but I'm on watch.  Ralph and Celeste are also on watch.  They sit on the kitchen windowsills, making eck-eck-eck chatter when they see the little dinky birds flutter in the lilacs.  I'd planned on keeping the bushes trimmed back neat and tidy, but they give wonderful shade to the west-facing kitchen in summer when shade is really needed and so I've let them grow higgledy-piggledy as they will.

On the east side, the hummers gathered for dinner.  I'm well into the second 25-pound sack of sugar.  It amazes me how much these birds drink and how fast.  The three feeders combined hold two quarts and already I fill them at least once and sometimes twice a day.  Clicking on the photo will enlarge it and the dozen or so hummers can easily be seen.

When I was a kid, the ditty went, "Spring has sprung.  Fall has fell.  Summer's here and it's hotter than...usual."  (We felt very naughty as we recited.)

It was a good day.