Bees, Please

The weather of late has kept the bees dormant, and it's a real concern.  Fruit and nut trees are blossoming, but the bees haven't come out to do their pollination work, without which there will be little to no fruit or nuts.  Down in the valley, there are huge almond orchards and the growers are very worried about this year's crop.  My lone almond tree has been beat to shreds by the wind, hail, and snow; not much hope there.  Now the plum trees are flowering, and the crab apple I finally got into the ground is showing pink buds.  Wake up, bees!  Wake up!

Going out to the garden to clean up the piles of weeds pulled the other day, I passed the first patch of Baby Blue Eyes. These sweet little wildflowers will dictate my mowing patterns (when the surrounding weeds get a little higher) because I want them to reseed and proliferate.  My mowing paths would make a drunken sailor proud as I swerve around these little bouquets delivered by Nature each spring.
Gently lifting Yuki last evening, I discovered a tiny black chick just drying off.  So far, the score is two striped chicks, three white, and now the black.  One egg left in the box of chicklits.

Lucy must have watched "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," as she totters about saying, "I'm not dead yet!"  She looks like the wreck of the Hesperus, but she's eating everything in sight, drinking gallons, and all systems are working well.  She goes in and out of her stall (the milking room) without assistance.  After spending that day by her side when she was down and everything but paralyzed, I just don't know what to think...but I'm glad.

Tessie is coming home from camp today.  I do not envy her the re-entry process.  Any time a new goat is introduced, or a returning goat comes back, they have to run the gauntlet to establish or re-establish their place in the pecking order of the herd.  This means they fight each and every one in the pen in turn.  I know what's coming, and there's not a darned thing I can do about it.  It's a heck of a welcome, for sure.