Glimpses of Early Spring at Our Mountain Farm

It's a busy week here, and my days are filled with substitute teaching, taking children to appointments and activities, running to the grocery store, and tackling the endless loads of laundry.  I'm pretty sure none of you want to see or hear about all of that.  So I decided to post some pictures taken over the past few days of sights on and around our farmhouse.  Even though it was 22 degrees here this morning, everywhere you look, the beginning of spring is evident.

We drove past an Amish farm the other evening and witnessed this newborn foal getting up and walking on its wobbly legs for the first time.  It felt like we were witnessing a miracle.

I only wish I could have gotten closer.  These were taken from our vehicle with my phone.

No leaves on our birch tree yet, but its light colored bark really stood out against the blue sky and kelly green grass.  The kids managed to nail in some platforms on some of the tree limbs.  Our youngest son can climb to nearly the top, which is about even with the attic floor of our farmhouse.  He's bound and determined to turn my hair gray!

The sky on Saturday looked like a painting.  Unfortunately, this turned into wet, windy, cold weather the next day.  We had wind gusts up to 70 mph that night and part of Sunday.  Nothing was damaged here, thank goodness.

Little grape hyacinths have popped up near the creek.  We're hoping that Morel mushrooms will be following close behind.  The woods are full of them up here in May, if you know where to look.  They sell for an astronomical price on the Internet and at our local Wegman's.

The grass and mosses are really turning bright green everywhere, including this brook that flows down the mountain on the other side of our lane.

OK, so these may have nothing to do with Mother Nature and spring, but I found these paisley sneakers at Target this weekend, and I couldn't resist sharing.  I just want to wear them with everything.  If I could find them in a pair of ballet flats, I don't think I'd wear anything else for the next two months.

The children were outside most of the day Saturday.  My husband has our younger boys all pumped up about rocket mass heaters.  They now want to build these miniature versions out of bricks all over our back yard.  Our fire-loving son spent hours tending to his until it got hot enough to boil water.  Not sure why that was the goal, since the water didn't get used for anything.

Our sheep and goats are so happy to be out on green pasture again.  They're still eating hay too, so they are getting quite round.  It's almost time for sheep shearing and kidding.  We expect baby goats by next month at this time.  Can't wait!

I'm going to admit that these little mounds puzzled me when the younger children and I were at the park last week.  They looked like small ant hills, but there were small yellow/black bees or hornets hovering over them.  We get plenty of yellow jackets here, but I'd never seen them with nests in the ground before.  These flying insects weren't aggressive, and they would sometimes dip down into the hole and fly back up again.  I did some googling, and I can't determine if they are a type of yellow jacket or a ground bee or something else I'm not even aware of.  If any of you knowledgeable readers out there can enlighten me, I would really appreciate it.

I hope your first week of April is warmer than ours.  I am grateful, though, that we didn't get any of the forecasted snow here.

What Would Spring Be Without Pansies?

How many of you have already planted some pansies or violas in flower beds near your house or pots on your porches?  Maybe you have some in hanging baskets or window boxes.  These are one of my all-time favorite flowers.  When we lived in South Carolina, it was often too hot in the summer for them, but we could grow them through the winter and into the spring.  This weekend we picked up a few packs of a variety of colors, and I spent some time digging in dirt and potting soil for the first time this year.  It felt fantastic.

With a new bag of potting soil, compost from our barn floor, my pink gardening gloves, and a shiny new spade, I was set to plant on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

I was feeling rather grumpy before I started.  Do you ever just have one of those days when you feel so crabby and grouchy, and you don't even know why?  Saturday morning was like that for me.  Maybe it was because it got colder or because I had heaping baskets of laundry to do or because I needed to pay bills, balance the check book, and record monthly expenses.  Yuck.

Regardless of the reason for my bad mood, it was completely gone after mixing soil, digging holes, loosening roots, and getting my hands in the dirt.  The sun was shining down on me, the wind was blowing my hair all over my face, the frogs were peeping near our pool, and all was right with the world.

I didn't even mind when my husband corrected my planting methods and told me where the extras should go.

Planting those few pansies and violas reminded me that I have always had a love for these flowers, and I started searching through my house for pansy items.  Like this throw cover I purchased many years ago from a gift shop that one of my childhood friends owned.

And I rediscovered this doily that my great grandmother made decades ago.

And then I remembered that a lifetime ago, I baked a cake for a friend's birthday and put fresh pansies on and around it because they're a beautiful, natural decoration and are edible too.  I seemed to recall somewhere in the back corners of my brain some interesting facts about this flower, so I did some google searching and jotted down some notes.  I'd like to share them with you.  Maybe this is common knowledge to many of you, but I had forgotten most of this.

 *Pansies are a hybrid from violas.
*Lady Mary Elizabeth Bennet produced them via cross-breeding, and she introduced them to the horticultural world in 1812.
 *Their name is derived from the French word, pensee (meaning thought.)
 *They are winter hardy in zones 4-8, and they can survive light freezes and short snow covers.
 *Margaret Mitchell originally chose Pansy as the name of the heroine in Gone With the Wind.
 *Van Gogh created the beautiful painting of pansies in the work Mand met viooltjes in 1887. 

*They really are edible.

*They are often called the "Trinity Flower" because of their 3 petaled shape and were used like the shamrock to represent the Holy Trinity.  For this reason, they are also associated with the Blessed Virgin Mary and referred to as Our Lady's Delight.  They are often one of many flowers planted in "Mary Gardens."  

I wish all of you a week filled with sunshine, sounds of spring, and a few hours of getting your hands in some dirt.  I'm confident it will cure any grouchy mood.

Farm Animals and Gourmet Coffee

Initially, I am awakened by this guy in the morning...

until I can sit on my porch rocker with this...

along with one of our furry friends to keep me company.

Wegmans Flavored Specialty Coffee in Amaretto has become my new favorite.  The aroma wafts up the stairs in the morning and makes me want to get up and face the day---that is, after our rooster has done his job.  I am also loving the fresh cut daffodils and forsythia brought to me almost daily by one of our children.