APRIL SHOWERS

 April has had plenty of showers so far... and frost. Spring has been slow to arrive. The daffodils are finally blooming well and the grass is growing. I am very slowly liberating the garden and flower beds of their winter's accumulation of weeds. 

The lawn llama celebrated Easter

 

My quarterly beach walk for CoastWatch from McPhillips Park was on March 18. I always check on the Black Oystercatchers that I monitor at this site beginning in May.

Always some hang gliders on nice days.

Johnny checked on eagle nests while I hiked the beach. And found one at Sitka Sedge.

 

A week later, he headed for California. The only photos are from Munazza and Steve while he was there helping with a Ren Xue project. He left here on March 25th, going to Munazza's sister Faiza's home first for projects there (and lots of food... he seems to eat his way through California visits). Then onward to San Carlos and a big project there. He arrived home on April 4th. Here are the photos from the San Carlos clan...

This is the backdrop he engineered for the Ren Xue retreat Munazza and Kestrel are working at. It had to be designed so that it could be taken down, packed and shipped to wherever the retreat is in the U.S. each time. He says it took a lot of head scratching to get it to work. It extends upward 12 feet

And here is the San Carlos clan, from left to right Jupiter (the dog), Kestrel 17, Munazza, Cedrus 15, Johnny, and Steve. Our kids and grandkids have seriously outgrown us.

While Johnny was gone, I was goat-keeping. So far we have had 3 does kid with a total of 7 kids, 6 bucklings and 1 doeling. They all look identical.

The only way I can tell them apart is by very tiny collars... blue for one set, red for another and none for the last. Since I leave babies with their moms and the moms have no trouble telling their children apart, I trust that everyone is nursing from their own moms.

The big news across the U.S. was the total eclipse on April 8, which we saw none of since we were far outside the range where totality would be seen and it was cloudy besides. Our lawn llama was taking no chances and wore eclipse glasses.

 

 Happy Spring!