A good spring day at home

This is my home as you would see it from the road, or at least from the pond beach. It's looking good since the addition of the house roofline.

It was one of those glorious spring Sunday mornings, the kind where you realize there is so much you could do but only a finite number of hours to do something. I decided to get the most grim, unpleasant job done first. I went out to our "pet cemetery" and dug a hole. The daffodils were starting to come up on the other graves there. Then I got Puffball's body out of the freezer and buried him. In the process of digging, I came up with a number of rocks, which I arranged in a circle around the filled hole. I brought my flute out and played one verse of "Amazing Grace".

Next I decided the priority of the day was getting potatoes planted. I could have also planted sugar snap peas and Swiss chard, but that will get done some time this week. I could not even get all the potatoes planted, because I discovered frost in one bed that still had a heavy layer of mulch. Potatoes planted there would likely rot. I'll let it thaw and dry another day or two.

While I was preparing potato beds, I heard the voice of a sandhill crane. I looked up, thinking it was flying low, but then I saw it so high in the sky it was barely a speck, circling on the thermals. For a bird with a six foot wingspan, it had to be a couple thousand feet up. Was it just enjoying itself, circling up there, calling out every once in a while for the fun of it?

Later I heard a high pitched Kee-ir! Kee-ir! and knew, from a similar day last year, it was a pair of harriers. I saw them circling together. I wonder if it was the same pair from last year.

In other bird news, the yellow bellied sapsuckers have arrived, as well as ruby crowned kinglets and even the first yellow rumped warblers! Soon the woods will be busy.


We did the first official swim today, sort of. Starflower and Mr. Attitude wanted to play on the beach and maybe go in the water, so I took a break from garden detail and watched them. They decided maybe the water was still a little cold. The skies turned overcast while we were out there; it is raining as I write this, and the temperature has fallen ten degrees.

Hopi and Sally were out exploring while I was gardening, and they happened to find a good mud hole in the wetland beyond the garden. Sally thought she looked good in darkface. I took her out to the pond before I allowed her back in the house. By the way, Maggie was with The Hermit as he was doing some errands in Duluth. I told him he had to take at least one dog, and he thought he could get some good attention with a puppy. ;)

Just another spring day here at Sand Creek. Life is good.