Spring Slowly Arrives

Ilkka making sure the carpets are properly washed and hung to dry.



April 23, an inch of snow, nothing to write home about.

 

Spring snow actually seems to help the grass green up.

Hard to resist taking a picture of a rising full moon.

 

The lambs are very playful at this age and spend much time chasing each other around the pen.



Ilkka surveying his hunting grounds.

You know spring has arrived when the turtles come out of their hibernation from under the mud at the bottom of the pond and start sunning themselves.  I have a special fondness for turtles.  As a boy I spent many hours trying to catch them at "Hokey's Dam".  We would try to sneak up on them pushing our half waterlogged rafts with poles and then rushing to the edge of the raft to try to grab the turtles as they plopped off their sunning logs into the pond.  You can imagine that we often went home with wet shoes and pants.  Nobody wore shorts in those days - it would have been considered the height of sissification.

Goldfinches turn gold in the spring, their winter plumage is  drab olive.

 

Spring flowers breaking through last fall's leave litter.