Thursday, May 21, 2009

Spring is sprung, the grass iz riz...

...I wonder where the llamas iz? Oh wait, they're coming later in the summer. So back to spring!

Here is Sophie, channelling her inner ruminant...

Munch munch munch!


Meanwhile, the trees are out in their full floral force. I love flowering crabapples:



Tristan isn't barking at me. He's lying in the long grass, eating some dead animal part he found. I didn't realize what was in his mouth until I had taken the picture and moved closer to investigate. Urgh.


Victoria Day weekend brought forth a mix of weather. Sunday was so frigging cold that Gordon put on his winter coat and gloves for lawn-mowing. Here he is on his favourite man-toy EVER. He's wearing his chainsaw "hat", which does a better job of keeping crap off his face than his previous combo of ear-defenders and safety glasses. You don't really need a hard hat to mow the lawn here...


I have to admit, this zero-turn mower is a lot of fun to drive, and the roll bar is no joke. We have some hills on our property that I refuse to mow up. I leave that to Gordon; the fun stops for me when I feel like the whole mower is going to flip like a pancake. We figured $250 extra for the roll bar was worth it to prevent possible quadriplegia.

Meanwhile, here is one of our fifteen new butternut babies:

Butternut trees around here are succumbing to some nasty canker, so we are participating in a tree-planting project. We planted these butternuts along the "cow lane" that runs between our fields. Cross your fingers for their survival. That's a "mulch mat" around the base of the tree, to keep down competition from weeds.


Tristan ambles back towards the barn...



We have a few huge, ancient apple trees around our property. They are not really productive, but they're beautiful when in bloom:



Ancient apple tree trunk...



And apple blossoms. They smell great!



What's growin' in your garden? Has your dog eaten anything disgusting lately? What's your husband's/partner's/boyfriend's/Dad's favourite man-toy?

7 comments:

  1. Answers: Lots of perennials are up like Monk's Hood, Hosta, Spike Speedwell. Always a fun time of year. Don't have dogs to eat things but the cats manage to be excited by anything green (house plants, grass) and four legged and smaller than them (mice, chippies, froggies). Richard's favourite toy? Has to be his chainsaw! He dons the headgear and the full body chain armour. Very sexy!!

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  2. Laughing at your dogs grazing like cows out in your yard! Except for that gross animal part Tristan found - yuck! Great idea on the roll bar for the tractor - I had a client whose husband unfortunately died when he received a head injury from rolling over in one of these.

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  3. You've seen pics of my garden. Next on my list to ripen will be Roma tomatoes. I'm excited to see so many coming up at once.

    My dogs love those anode lizards. Once they get them, though, they realize they don't taste too good.

    Favorite man-toy is Jack's boat.

    Hey, the rollbar on the ride-on isn't a bad idea at all. A man I used to work for (before kids) had his father die from a lawn-mower roll-over. Crushed him. Nope. It doesn't sound like a bad idea at all to me. Btw, he was in IOWA where I thought it was flat.

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  4. Spring on the farm - lovely!

    Bleeding hearts are blooming, Shadow's eating another squirrel, and sweet husband borrowed a friend's leaf blower this weekend and now just must have one of his own.

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  5. Ronna, Gordon's favourite toy is definitely his new chainsaw, although he needs a few more lessons on it from his forester friend.

    Robin, Jack has a beautiful boat. No wonder it's his favourite!And the lawn mower roll-over story is so sad. I have heard way too many stories like this, including one about a local octagenarian farmer who rolled his tractor and died after so many years of surviving without a roll bar! Our mower has a seatbelt too.

    Freshisle, my Tristan is impressed with Shadow's handiwork. I haven't seen Tristan catch a squirrel in a very long time. I think the squirrels in our yard have now wised up, although it's possible I'm just missing the action. And the leafblower, ah, boys and their toys! ;)

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  6. "What's your husband's/partner's/boyfriend's/Dad's favourite man-toy?"

    Must... resist... easy... answer...

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  7. I am truly impressed by your restraint, HWB!

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Thank you for all your comments, which I love to read!