Busy Spring

 May zoomed by with lots of long hikes monitoring Black Oystercatchers and others. Grass keeps growing and I keep mowing, even though May is supposed to be No Mow May to allow pollinators to feed. Believe me, they have plenty of unmowed territory on our 45 acres to explore. 

The beds are a mass of grass and weeds, but I have liberated almost all the blueberry bushes and the rhubarb I could find. Johnny made a rhubarb pie. I planted and replanted tomatoes in the tires in the garden. Lots of beets and chard and potatoes volunteered. Peas are up but not flowering... weather has been cold and wet. 

A pair of bluebirds have nested in one of our boxes and now have chicks to feed... when the weather is dry enough for the insects to fly. Here is the pair, wet and bedraggled, on top of their box.

Lots of anxiety for me over my beloved Mr. Smith's sore feet in May... mostly my fault for letting him out on spring grass. I have just started letting him out for a few hours a day again. The cowbirds are happy to have a lookout post on his back and he is happy to have them eating any flies that dare to land up there.

The last goat to kid kindly did it without my help during  Mother's Day night. When I checked early the next morning, two kids were up, dry, fed and fine. What a great Mother's Day present!

 With all the ugliness in the world these days, it is nice to have bouncy baby goats in the barn and beautiful flowers blooming in the greenhouse. I go into the greenhouse to enjoy whenever the world becomes too much.

Johnny is constantly busy trying to keep things running here, getting ready for haymaking when the weather finally allows, and repairing all the stuff the goats and I break. He has also been accompanying me on some of my long coastal hikes surveying birds. 

It's all preferable to listening to the news, which seems to go from one disaster to another, most of which would be preventable with sensible laws and sensible people. 

The pandemic continues to rage but we, happily, have stayed healthy through it all and are now vaccinated and double boosted, plus wear masks when in public places. Most of our neighbors have had Covid at least once... and most, but not all, have survived. Several have had it twice. Those are mostly the ones unvaccinated and/or unmasked. Some people are very slow learners.

Here's hoping for good health, good weather, good friends... and good sense... for all.