The Odes of Spring

Well like rights of passage, to everything there is a season.  How cliche...

R and I worked in the yard today and cleaned the slimey pond water....it consists of draining the 120 gallons that were in it and then pressure washing the slim off the rocks the vacuuming the sludge off the bottom and finally refilling the pond, R puts in his concoction to supposedly keep the water from going slimey (needs to work on that) and then we turn the pump on and voila...the waterfall starts and the birds are happy. While we were working there though we heard our little toad begin croaking.  Honestly we only started  hearing the frogs croaking a couple of days ago here down on the sloughs. 

This little guys lives in my courtyard, he eats the slugs and beetles and stuff in my flower beds. Serenades us at night, well, really all day long as long as no one disturbs him.  I think he is calling for a mate...but so far we have only ever seen the one...poor guy. He croaks and croaks all night long. Our yellow dog sits by the pond and turns his head from side to side trying to figure out what is making that noise...ahahahha it is funny .
We have a cat hanging around the house lately, which is unusual for us, since R feeds the cats at the barn to keep them from soiling the gardens, but the barn cats fight with this one and she is a lovely kitty, light grey and white spots, she has kittens somewhere but we don't know where, but she spends most of the day near the house following me around and wants to be friendly, she rubs on our legs and purrs.. but can't quite make herself let us pet her ...still a bit scared...I give her the odd treat but have come to realize why I prefer the cats to stay by the barn...she stalks my birds, shits in my greenhouse soil and won't shut up....So I have convinced R to set up a feeding station just for her in the wood shed...there are sparrows in there she can kill to her hearts content...and the other cats and ravens cant get at her food. I hope.

Tomorrow the guy with the big sprayer is coming to spray our stubble fields where last years crop grew...to kill the quack grass and thistle...

Then next week we have arranged for a fellow with an air seeder to come and put the crop in. normally we do it ourselves but R is worried about conserving soil moisture this year since the ground is like powder.



So we will pay this guy to till, seed and pack the field all in one pass.

I have a sore gum today, from a french frie poking into the hole where my tooth used to be...damn...I knew it was a bad idea to eat those...

and R has a head cold...so we are just a bundle of joy around here today...both crabby and tired.
I killed my first mosquito today, good god, you would think the least mother nature could do if it has to be so bloody dry is make the mosquito's not hatch...honestly we can't figure out where there was enough water laying around for them to hatch at all.