April Showers and Flowers

We have all, human and animal, been enjoying the spring flowers around the yard. These pansies came up near our cold frames.
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!

This Week's Adventure

I (Sarah) was driving home from work yesterday afternoon. As I neared Elm Street (where we turn off the main road towards home), I saw a red Saturn with a white rag in the window parked on the opposite side of the road. Hmmm, that looks like it could be Mick's car. Yes, I see the Gadsden flag, that's his car alright. Uh-oh. Apparently, on Mick's way to school that morning, the car carried him safely through the intersection, then stalled and refused to restart. It was a pathetic sight, the tired old car parked along Route 41 waving the white flag of surrender. Mick's dad very kindly drove down to help him troubleshoot and see if any life could be breathed into the poor vehicle or if it was indeed belly-up.
I was very impressed watching them push the car back along Route 41 past Elm Street, so they could tow it straight home rather than continuing along 41 and trying to turn around. (Actually, they did a better job pushing the car than I did driving mine in reverse.) While they tinkered in the driveway, I cleaned leeks that we had dug on Monday.
Roscoe insisted on being in the driveway with the menfolk rather than in the house with me. Finally, with some long-distance help from John (thank you!), the car came back to life! So we are still a two-car family, at least for now. :) We took it out for a test drive, and it successfully carried us up the hill. Roscoe's favorite part was looking/smelling out the window.
We inspected the garden
and Marty spotted our first hop sprout.
The rhubarb is going crazy!
This is a pile of trees that Mick has thinned. The trees were planted so closely together that they grew tall but incredibly thin, and if you look at the grove, you wouldn't believe he took anything out, they are still so close.
Then we dug leeks for Marty to bring home.
We have SO MANY LEEKS. It is hard to believe that they are a protected species in Quebec (where the French poetically call them garlic of the forest). Several patches of May apples have appeared among the leeks...
the trout lilies are blooming...
and most exciting, we have scarlet trillium!
Trillium is such a beautiful flower, and the red are Mick's favorite, but we only saw one or two in our wanderings last year. Mick collected May apple seeds last fall hoping we could plant some on our property, and he has been telling me about leeks and looking for them without any luck since last year. We are so pleased to have these beautiful and productive plants already on our land.
Having dug our leeks, we enjoyed sunset beers. (You can see the asparagus trench, the rhubarb, the row of raspberries, and grape trellis posts.)
A lovely ending to a quite unexpected day!

Spring!

Well, it hasn't felt much like spring this weekend (yes, it actually snowed yesterday) but the flowers seem to believe that warmer weather will eventually come to stay. Bobbie planted lots of flowers around the yard, so it has been fun to see the surprises as they bloom. First the snowdrops, then crocuses and violets. Nuccia, I told you I was jealous because Laura's myrtle had flowers and I didn't expect that ours would. (We moved here in late August and I think we saw two flowers right at the end of fall, so that didn't seem promising.) Well, I am happy to say that I was quite wrong! We have myrtle in the front yard and in the back, and it is all full of flowers.

It is hard to capture the colour in pictures (at least for this photographer), but I discovered last week that myrtle is also called periwinkle. It's such a lovely color (and perfectly matches Crayola's Periwinkle).

I couldn't believe that the pansies Mom gave us in the fall survived the winter! I knew they were hardy (they continued flowering in the fall after several hard frosts) but I didn't expect to see them again this spring!


They have survived Gerard's garden hunts and the tangles of two leashes, which is almost as impressive as surviving the winter.

I love the splashes of color, and remembering that yes, spring really is on its way.