Signs of spring

This morning I woke to the sounds of birds singing. Not any new voices, but all of the winter residents are starting to stake their territory - Carolina wrens, chickadees, titmice, etc. It is such a beautiful sound! I also heard a sound that took a few sleepy minutes to identify. My first thought was that Foxy had captured a small duck and was holding it hostage on the porch. I crawled out of bed to find Foxy indeed sitting on the welcome mat waiting to be let in, but he had no captives. It was then that I realized the strange croaking noise was a FROG in my frog pond!! The pond has only been thawed for a week or two, and already the frogs are back! It wasn't even a spring peeper either; it was a pickerel frog.

After that great start to the day, I was motivated to do some serious spring-y things. First I did some organizing in the greenhouse and planted a couple of flats of broccoli, kale, lettuce and spinach. I LOVE greenhoue time of year. Everything in the greenhouse is so manageable. It's only once you move all those precious plants out into the wide open garden that you realy start to lose all control of the situation.

I then moved on to removing the debris from the flower beds around the greenhouse in order to make it easier for the chickens to wreck havoc expose the beautiful crocuses and snowdrops that are blooming. My cute little twine fence didn't fare well over the winter, but the posts are still standing strong, so I can easily redo it. It was more of a looks thing anyway as it totally failed at his intended purpose of keeping the chickens out. I now have scraps of fencing laid down over the newly uncovered area in hopes that it will be less inviting for scratching in. At least I won't have the goats eating the hyacinths and crocuses this year. I might actually get to enjoy them for once. (Famous last words, but I am setting a warm weather resolution for myself to work on having less attachment to perfectly groomed flower beds, or flowers at all for that matter should the situation get that dire.)

At this point my sunny spring day turned into a real soaker, and I abandoned any further outdoor projects.