Wild Strawberrries

Johnny found them while following me on his bike through my mown arboretum paths... tiny red berries hiding under their leaves. We stopped to pick and eat them. Wild strawberries are delicious, but, as my mother always said, you could starve to death eating them.











Besides mowing, I've been trying to catch up on weeding (hopeless), hoof trimming and the thousand other tasks that need doing this time of year. Johnny, in the bits of time when he is not in too much pain from sciatica, has been working on the new goat barn, burning piles of accumulated tree trimmings, and trying to stay positive. The last is easier now that surgery is on the docket... exactly when we don't know, but soon. We have great hope that Johnny's disk replacement surgery will be as successful as it was for friend and neighbor Dennis.

Life continues with weekly trips to the coast to spot Black Oystercatchers. I couldn't resist this photo of a Pigeon Guillemot displaying its bright red legs on a rock at Cape Kiwanda. The pair of BLOY at this site are not yet nesting. They were foraging together at low tide on the opposite side of the cape from the Guillemot. Here is one preening and showing his bill to advantage.










Also at Cape Kiwanda was this handsome male House Finch. He and his mate were scolding me so I must have been close to their nest or perhaps newly fledged offspring.


The BLOY at Road's End are more ambitious than those at Cape Kiwanda, with three pairs nesting. It's a long look down but my scope, seen in the photo, helps. The two big rocks below have a BLOY nest on the one closest to shore and the partner of the setting bird on the oceanward rock. But it takes a lot of zooming in to spot the sentinel BLOY.
























Back home, rhododendrons have loved our cool wet spring. The one in front of our house has outdone itself. I really need to prune it someday.

The first rose of summer to bloom is, as always, Zephrine Drouhin against the house. (I call her ZD.)



In the flower beds, flowers have to rise above the grass and weeds to be seen. Columbine and iris manage well. The snowball bush blooms above them all.







Besides flowers, there's food... in spite of the tilled but not-yet planted garden. I ate the first artichoke last night. Johnny doesn't like artichokes. Too bad for him. There will be plenty.














It's a bountiful and colorful spring ...with wild strawberry breaks amid all the work.