Spring at It's Finest

After two exciting weekends in a row, one on our adventure in Gettysburg and at the Washington D.C. Temple, and the other with a houseful of family here, things got very quiet last week. The Thayns left on Sunday afternoon. Sarah and Tosh went home on Tuesday. Josiah and Vanessa left on Wednesday. Now we’re back to just the usual four of us, plus Kurt and Julie next door and we seem so few in numbers.

Good-bye to Josiah and Vanessa, the last guests to leave.

I spent the week working in the garden every chance I got. This is a crucial time of year with weeding and planting and setting things in order for the whole of the growing season that lies ahead. I like May because everything is still under control. The weeds aren’t rampant yet. The plants in the gardens are still small and tidy, but growing. When summer comes, it’s harder to keep things under control.

On one of my morning walks: the beaver pond.

Morning walk: the Genesee stream.

Morning walk: Burrell's pond looking west at a cloud bank.

Morning walk: looking east at sunrise.

As I work outdoors I’m entranced by the birds around me. In the early mornings, often the first bird sound I hear, though it hardly qualifies as music, is the peacock who starts in the dim light to call for the sun. We can hear him in the house and I wonder if his noise bothers the neighbors. The peacock is up even before the chickens. I don’t hear our rooster crow until later. By the time the sky is brightening, the dawn chorus of the birds is at full volume. When I go out, my first direct encounter with the avian world is the robin who flies in alarm off her nest under the back porch eaves. Even though I pass that way dozens of times in a day, she never gets used to me. She has four babies in her nest now. As I take my morning walk, I usually hear a Yellow-billed Cuckoo calling from the hawthorn thicket across the road and the half-crazy songs of the Gray Catbirds and a Brown Thrasher. We’re far enough into spring now that the different warblers have returned. I hardly ever see them. They are shy and quick and they stay in the tops of the trees, but I hear their twittering songs. I know a man who can identify them just by hearing them, but I don’t have that gift. I know there are Yellow Warblers, Yellow-rumped Warblers, Common Yellowthroats, Blackburnian Warblers, and American Redstarts flitting about. I wish they’d hold still long enough for me to see them clearly.

I love to see birds around me all day. These days my bird feeders are regularly visited by Red-winged Blackbirds, Goldfinches, White-breasted Nuthatches, Black-capped Chickadees, Northern Cardinals, Blue Jays, House Finches, various woodpeckers, and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks. The Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are back. I put out a feeder and at least two of them come every day to feed. I’ve been putting out a dish of grape jelly for the orioles and they come to eat, though less frequently now as insects become more abundant. I think they are nesting in the Shillig’s big wild cherry tree. One night last week Miriam, who stays up later than the rest of us, heard a Barred Owl calling. The Eastern Kingbirds are back, perching on the treetops on the lookout for flying insects. Eastern Bluebirds and Tree Swallows have been checking out the birdhouses on the kiwi trellis, as they do every spring. They fuss over occupancy and usually, in the end, neither of them settles in and the House Sparrows take over.

Birds I see (not my photos).

I have always loved birds. I think I love them as much as I love flowers – and for the same reasons. In creating the world and its creatures, God could have made them drab. Flowers are just the reproductive organs of plants. They could have been created with very utilitarian designs and still carry out their necessary function, but God made them beautiful, even extravagant in their structures and colors. The same is true of birds. That he lavished them with colorful plumage and gave them melodious voices bears witness to me that He loves beauty. As the prophet Alma proclaimed: “all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator.” And that he made His creations beautiful testifies to me that He loves us and wants us to delight in his handiwork.

The weather service issued a frost warning for Tuesday night. I was expecting it. It was the last night of the full moon and May’s full moon is often frosty. I covered the lilies that had survived the previous frosts with buckets and flowerpots to protect them. On Wednesday morning when I looked out, it was 30° and there was frost, but it wasn’t heavy. When I uncovered the lilies, they looked okay. Some of the lilacs suffered a little. If we’re lucky, that will be our last frost. Hoping that it would, I moved many of my seed trays out to the greenhouse and onto the back porch stairs – the final step before planting out. I won’t give them any additional heat now so they will harden off and be ready to go into the ground on Memorial Day weekend.

Frost on Wednesday morning.

Plants on the back porch stairs.

After that frosty morning, the weather warmed and was lovely for the rest of the week. Yesterday was not just warm, it was hot. The temperature rose to 91°, which we don’t often hit in high summer let alone May. But it was nice to feel the heat. I wore shorts when I mowed the lawn in the afternoon. I planted the last of my seed trays, the heat-loving plants – squash, cucumbers, pumpkins, and melons – that will sprout quickly and be ready to go out in two weeks.

The last seed trays started on the back porch.

I moved the last of the chicks to the barn yesterday. It’s good to have them out of the house. After I put them in the big pen, I sat and watched them for half an hour to see how they got on with the older chicks that were already in there. It was interesting to watch them adjust their pecking order. Chickens keep a strict social order. I still have a heat lamp on for them because it gets chilly at night and they aren’t fully fledged. Up in the house we passed a seasonal milestone and turned off the furnace. If it gets cold again, I might be joining the chicks in the barn.

Yesterday we went to the funeral of the man we called Uncle Dick. His real name was Richard Eddy Young, the youngest son of my Great Aunt Eleanor, so he was actually my first cousin once removed. He was born in 1932. He was just two years younger than my father. Uncle Dick was a great man, one of the kindest men I’ve ever known. He was instrumental in getting us this house and from the moment we arrived, he and Aunt Helen welcomed us into their family. The funeral was nice, held in the new barn across the road from the old Young farm where Dick lived. The people who were there, most of whom I knew, many of whom are my kin, all knew and loved Dick. It seems the end of an era now that he is gone. It occurred to me during the funeral, that now that Dick is gone, my father is the only remaining grandchild of my great grandparents, Theodorus and Anna May Howe.

Uncle Dick.

It cooled off in the night and when I went out on my Sabbath morning walk, it was very dewy. After yesterday’s work the lawn and gardens looked lush and verdant. The leaves on the trees are big enough to cast some shade now. It was a fragrant morning. The smell of the cut lawn was fresh. Out in the woodland garden (which is not very woodland-ish yet) there are thousands of fern fronds unfurling and the violets and lily-of-the-valley are blooming. Lily-of-the-valley is one of my favorite floral fragrances. The lilacs are blooming and with the breeze blowing from the west, I could smell them and the last of black currant flowers as I walked. It was a beautiful, peaceful morning.

Violets in the woodland garden.

Lily-of-the-valley in the woodland garden.

One of my lilac bushes.

We’re back from church now. I love the drive up and back. The hills are green now with the trees leafed out and the fields are full of white cow parsley and yellow dandelions. We’re having asparagus for lunch. I picked it last thing yesterday evening as I was leaving the garden. They are sauteeing it in butter with garlic and the aroma is amazing. After we eat, I will go down and do the chores and sit with the chicks for a while to see how they are faring. The forecast says we will get heavy rain this afternoon. I welcome it, but hope it holds off until I get back from the barn. Good Sabbath.

Asparagus I picked yesterday evening.

Dan