If you come to my house around 4 or 5 in the afternoon these days you'll be blessed. Spring is not just in the air but is right smack dab in the middle of my yard and what a blessing she's bestowing on us this time around!
The first blooms are making a dramatic entrance and lots of others are not far behind. My iris are about finished but the peonies and ice plant are coloring my garden a beautiful pink and white. I'm looking forward to the hollyhocks and they are just about ready to bloom.
I've actually kept my eye on the garden a little more this year for more than one reason though. This year there are chickens enjoying it too. I chase them out with a broom and it works for awhile but the temptation is just too much and after a couple of days their memories fade and they're just hankering to get back in the there to scratch around and chew on the greenery. For the most part they haven't really hurt anything so it's not really that bad. I just have to be diligent to watch.
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Here are my little ladies with the garden in the background. The hen in the front is the Buff and she is the aggressive, arogant one, always hogging the food and expecting more exactly when she wants it. She follows me around the yard, hanging out as I'm working in a particular area. It started when I was sifting the compost a few weeks ago and I'd throw her a worm every so often. I guess she thinks that's gonna happen again.
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Here's the Link. She's the puny one, always hanging back to wait for the leftovers when the other two are finished eating. She's pretty laid back and not really friendly like the Buff. I think she's just apprehensive and more reserved. I don't think she ever gets in my garden so I certainly appreciate her obedience.
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And this is the Rock. Even though I'm pretty sure she's the same age as the other two, for some reason I see her as the mother figure or something. Maybe it's because she started laying first. She's not as friendly as the Buff either but will eat out of my hand and that's kinda fun. The Buff will too but she eats so fast that it takes all the fun out of it. This morning Bob was mowing so he moved the coop to another spot. After he moved it he realized he didn't see the Rock anywhere so looked in the nesting box and there she was, seemingly not bothered by the disturbance. I guess when they're working, they mean business.
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Here's a view of about half of my yard with the garden in the background. The ladies wanted to be in the picture. This is what they do the whole time they are out of their coop, just roam around pecking at the grass and scratching around the ground looking for some tasty morsel to eat. They don't spend a whole lot of time on the patio anymore which is a good thing because that means they're not pooping there as much. Yay! I don't think they sleep during the day at all. Every once in awhile I'll see them sitting somewhere but that usually doesn't last very long. They're always on the move. Or bathing! That's really something to watch when they jump in their bathtub (aka, my former flower garden under the kitchen window) and roll around in the dirt, flipping sand up in their feathers.
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| My beautiful white peonies |
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| The big plant is my hollyhocks. The small pink flower on the right is the ice plant. |
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| This is my miniscule veggie garden. I've got potatoes, onions, and tomatoes growing right now. |
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Moving to my front yard, this is the
clematis that I'm really enjoying this year.
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This fun little bush is a Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow plant. You can probably already guess that it's named because of the changing colors of the flower. I've had two of these for about three years but this year they have really taken off and are blooming like crazy. I guess they enjoyed our mild winter. I love this happy plant mostly because they're really not supposed to be able to live this far north but I planted them next to the brick wall, hoping to keep them a little warmer and so far it's worked.
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