I believe these flowers, growing on the west side of the house, are called bleeding hearts. (Thanks to Mick, who identified them as "similar to Dutchman's breeches", and Google filled in the rest.) I hadn't realized the flowers were heart-shaped, but it is a very fitting name for them I think.
Gerard loves to sit right among the flowers. One day, Mick came in and told me I should go out and follow the trail of his leash. His meandering reminds us of the Family Circus cartoons.
We still have birds coming to our suet feeder too. The most faithful visitors are a chickadee and a hairy woodpecker. One cold day, we had kept the living room curtains closed to keep the house warmer. But that didn't stop Gerard, who had stayed inside that day because of the cold. He spotted a bird at the feeder, and you should have seen his tail twitch!
The crabapple tree in the front yard looks beautiful since Mick pruned it.
Then right in the middle of all these April flowers, we were very surprised last weekend by April showers that felt a whole lot less like spring.
Yes, that's snow.Which was followed up by wind-blown sleet.
Not the sort of showers we were expecting, that's for sure! But now things are returning to normal. After the coldest spell, Gerard was determined to be outside, even though it was still quite windy. He very cleverly found a spot in the sun but sheltered from the wind.
And he defended his territory from curious intruders!
The crabapple tree flowers have survived their icy showers, and the tree looks pinker every day.
We are certainly looking forward to the final arrival of Spring!
looks beautiful! can't believe you got snow...
ReplyDeleteWe couldn't believe it either! :) Today feels much more summery though, at last.
ReplyDeleteYup those are definitely bleeding hearts. Are the neighbors appreciative now of the pruning??
ReplyDeleteActually, we haven't really talked since. It's not as bad as that sounds though, we've been busy and Mary's father is now living with them, as he recently had a stroke. So we've both been busy, but I should make an effort to talk to him. Certainly the tree looks a lot better. Next year I will ask permission and make it even better. But the real excitement is happening at the farmstead...we've got 3 hazelnuts, 4 native plums, 6 bush cherries, 3 gooseberries, and we've already planted 4 shadberries. From the arbor day foundation, we've got two apples, 2 sugar maples, 2 butternuts, two black walnuts, and a bunch of other trees on the way. We put in three Elvira grapes to bring our total to 13 grape vines, with 11 more on the way. We also have a beta vine, which is a black grape and very cold hardy, but we're not sure what to do with it. Eventually we'd like to have a nice place to sit somewhere, and we're thinking the beta grape would be a great one to climb over a arbor, along with some hops, perhaps, but we really don't know where. By the way, weren't you going to send us pictures of your garden and keep us updated? :)
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