Snowy farm and "farmer" and a flock of flickers

Yesterday's snow was not a big surprise, but still a bit unusual for this late in April. Last night I got some pretty pics of the house and the farm, and a not so pretty selfie of a snowy farmer going out to close up her chickens for the night.

I spent far too much time this morning trying to get a good photo of the 8 Northern Flickers that were in my yard. I have seen them here before, but only 1 or 2 at a time. I don't know why there were 8 here at once. They have been here all morning, and still now at 1:30. I managed to capture 6 in the big pic below. I had to highlight the 5 that weren't flying so that you could see them through my dirty windows.

Cyrus does most of his nighttime and early morning hunting barking through these living room windows. He would really like to go through the glass to get to whatever it is that he sees in the darkest hours. Much spraying of bodily fluids in the frenzied barking. He needs a face mask. And I need ear plugs.

Snain, snow, snore

Yesterday was a perfect spring day. Sunny and 60°, time to get to work on that garden. Woody spent the morning in my chair, and then both boys spent the afternoon resting in the sun while I was gardening. Even with that rolled up fence in the back corner, the WoodMan still managed to tromp on the garlic I had planted in the fall. Now the fence inside the fence is more secure, and the garlic is joined by some transplanted rhubarb, soon to be joined by the Heritage Large Red Tomato seedlings I have in the basement.

I also fenced off another spot by the living room windows so that I could plant the David Austin "Munstead Wood" English shrub rose. At least for this year I will still allow my weedy daisies and hollyhocks to come up in there, but eventually I want to take over that area for other flowers or herbs or vegetables.

Later in the day I celebrated my gardening success with a glass of chardonnay with sun in it.

And then came today with no weather to celebrate. A chilly rain to start the day. Then some snain. Then some snow. And a WoodMan snoring while I took the video.

Still more snowflakes in the weekly forecast.

Notes from a pandemic

Poor Willie is having a rough time surviving his quarantine. Not. He is an indoor cat anyway, and now he has his humans home more often. And when they are not home, he has the nice leather chair all to himself.

The Husband has a rougher time behaving in quarantine. He still has to go into work (by himself) and yes it is an essential job. Still has to buy hay to feed the goats young and old. Still has to go food shopping to buy the same things I bought the day before but didn't tell him about... This is a rare capture of him seated.

In contrast, I have always been good about staying home. Husband can verify that. I am trying to be a more responsible home-stayer in actually completing some tasks (paying bills, cleaning, cooking, decluttering) but am being bombarded with all these creative ways that others who are less accomplished at being idle are coming up with.

So far the only new time-waster I caved to was coloring in this NY Times graphic. It took me 3 days to finish this masterpiece, only to find that you couldn't save it. I took these 3 pasted together screen shots just minutes before Husband shut down my Chrome window.

And yes, snow in April. Today for the second time, with the sun out.

April showers?

And some day there will be spring for sure.

2 visitors and a Rainbow

Doctors T & J came by on Easter Sunday to give us some fabric masks. We must be the only people in the County who don't know how to sew to make our own. And we are both still working to some degree, so we are out and about more than I would like.

While the good doctors were here, they shared some quality time with the goat kids. We kept a fair distance from them, and they from us, but they were still able to get up close and personal with all the cuteness. Dr J gave the always hungry little Rainbow a nice warm bottle of Rosie milk. It took 1 entire minute for her to drain a 20-oz bottle.

That's Rainbow, the baby in all 3 pics. Being very fresh in the big pic above!

Bella is the red head > who was wary of the strangers and wouldn't let her baby, Red Betty, come out to play.

And WillieCat in the last pic is always my morning sleep partner. He took this selfie of us snuggling. He is just a bit jealous of the cute goats getting all the attention.

Spring and the lockdown

I may have called it spring too soon, but I am sticking with my call. It's 43° and windy and raining right now. Some accumulation of snow is predicted for tomorrow. There are 3 snowflakes in the weekly forecast. Oh well.

I am still having some trouble convincing certain family members (you know who you are!) to stay home, but as I am still going in to work at the newspaper 2 or 3 days a week, I guess I can't argue that point. The one thing we can still do safely while technically under lockdown is to walk the dogs. On the rare occasion when The Hub took an especially beautiful day off, we walked over by the horse farm. This is the usual route that we both take (separately) almost every day. Cyrus especially enjoys visiting our favorite mechanic across the road, but he is willing to respect social distancing by visiting with the horses instead.

And now the horses have started to come to the fence to check out the Cyrus. One blue-eyed Cremello and one brown-eyed Buckskin or Dun are here checking out the blue- and brown-eyed Cyrus. (I am sure Ginette will correct me if I named these horses incorrectly.)

And finally, yesterday I was surprised to find a picture on my phone of a younger (much skinnier) me with a young Woody on the porch of someone else's nice house. Who took this picture?

Truth be told, it was part of an Eddie Bauer ad that came in an email. Strong resemblance, don't you think?

OK, you can stop laughing now.

Please be well my friends and family, and even my enemies if I have any. Stay home as much as you possibly can until this evil thing goes away for good.