Lovin' it!

Having a lovely glass of malbec (from Tara who also bought me lunch today, thank you Tara!) while watching The Husband mow the lawn and appreciating the aroma of a roasting duck in the oven that he is making me for dinner for my birthday.

And it is a gorgeous day! My perfect weather— a sunny 66° with 37% humidity—definitely not New Jersey weather.

It doesn't get any better than this.

PS: Hub is on a picture-taking spree—second pic is Miss Jess, pre-mow, also loving the weather.

The baby forest and the snapper

The house looks great from back on the trail through the young forest we had planted by the Trees for Tribs folks. Burr oak on the left, river birch on the right, old apple trees in the background have already lost their blossoms.

This snapping turtle looked like she (?) might be laying eggs in the gravel pile by the driveway. Of course we don't know if she's a he, or if they were just sunning themselves.

They were there for the whole day, gone in the morning. I was afraid to get too close to see if there were any eggs in there, even after they left.

Catching up with apples and chickens

The Husband took a long walk through the back 40 (20 actually) on May 14, one of those gorgeous spring days we have been blessed with recently. By the looks of it there will be plenty of apple pies and apple butter this year.

Often the blossoms open only to be killed by frost or snow, and then there are years like this where all these apples just fall to the ground for any critter who wants them. The deer will be very happy. Some of them even get drunk when the apples start to rot on the ground. Hard cider for everyone!

The baby chicks were a month old when I moved them from the dog crate in the garage to the Omlet coop out in the yard. Luckily the freezing temps did not return, so I could turn off the heat lamp and let them get some sun.

These little teenagers look pretty silly before all their big girl feathers grow in. The 2 red ones both have a little crest on their head, which means they could be part Cream Legbar, a breed I really like.

And then there's our handsome rooster, strutting his stuff in front of the ladies.

More goats!

Lizzie the red mama lost 2 kids this past winter. Since I witnessed the buck "wooing" her shortly after her loss, I can't say that we were surprised by the 2 kids she gave us this morning.

But we were surprised by the 1 little girl kid who came later today from either Shirley or Stella, the black and white twins. One of them gave us a healthy kid on November 30. That devil Walter Becker must have gotten to her while she was still feeding her kid!

My apologies for the afterbirth in the picture. every time I tried to get a better angle, she would leave her baby.

And our thanks to Emma from the PO for posing with Lizzie's already cleaned-up bucklings!

Dog training and outdoor cats

Beautiful weather means Miss Jessie has been spending most of the day outside. On the nice days,  she is out there early morning through dinner time.

Cyrus is also happy to be out with Jessie, as long as I am too. So I am getting some garden prep done, hoping we are past the freezing temps.

Tom, our friend and local dog trainer, thinks Miss Jess needs more socializing. We promised to work on that, but it is hard not to stay here puttering around in the yard when it is so darn nice!

After losing Willie, Husband has been itching to bring in one of the outdoor cats. (He would bring them both in!)

I argue that they are good together out there, and one would be lonely without the other, and they are doing a good job keeping the rodent population down, AND, how do you keep them from trying to sneak out the door when that's where they think they live?

Still working on this.

Velcro Monkey and birds

MonkeyCat is still mourning the loss of his 2 best buddies, Woody and Willie. He was never much of a lap cat until now, at least not with me. Willie used to take up most of my lap time on the sofa.

I have noticed Monkey getting closer to Cyrus, grooming and head-butting him. He's trying to make Cyrus his new dog pal, but I'm not sure that Cyrus is interested. We'll see.

Husband would still like to bring in one of the outside cats, most likely Zelda, but I am little afraid that Cyrus is too interested in Zelda and Otis. We'll see.

I took down the bird cam/feeder and replaced it with a thistle seed feeder. The squirrel was far too busy with the BirdBuddy, and I take it down in the spring anyway.

Red and gold were the colors of the day! Mrs. Cardinal was out there too.

Hey Hey the First of May!

Look who Lisa brought to work today!