It's MELTING....melting....

Things have sure been warming up lately. The snow is melting like crazy, creating little creeks all over the property (not to mention a tiny bit of flooding in one corner of the basement). This picture was taken 3 days ago and a lot of this snow is now gone, too.

And here are pictures taken from the back porch ..... one around New Year's (with our friend Barb and her 2 dogs) and one 3 days ago.


The mud, of course, is a story all on it's own, which I will let Art tell you about. He has some good pictures on his blog of our return home last Friday.
It seems that when things change, they change FAST. Starting to see some bugs and the birds are coming back. I never really paid attention to birds before, but now I am noticing them. Besides those crazy green kamakazies we saw on the highway the other day, I've also seen some beautiful, beautiful cyan blue birds in our field. It's hard to see what they really look like up close, and trying to get info on the internet is not an easy task. I think I need a book with pictures that I can refer to. Anyways, we had about 6 hummingbirds last summer, so I'm hoping they will come back. Plus 2 other kinds of birds that nest in the sheds and barns (they left for winter, but I'm sure they'll be back). They are good for keeping the mosquitoes down. Only problem is that one of the species likes to build mud nests on the sides of the house and we are going to have to find a way to keep them from doing that this year. These are just SOME of the birds around here, so I can see that a new hobby may be budding for me. I just never know where new interests are going to come from sometimes.