28 March 2013 - First seeds planted

What a glorious day. Our temps hit 71, which was wonderful in the sun and a bit cool in the shade. To celebrate, after work I walked the loop. All the aspens are covered in fat catkins. Other shrubs and trees are setting buds. Lilacs have buds big enough to see a green haze.  I saw lots of daffodils with buds and even two in bloom. Hyacinths and iris are poking out of the ground as well. The wyethia and rabbit bush are showing as green clumps now. Maples and cottonwoods are showing flowers. Spring! You have to love the changes you see every day. Hard to believe that five days ago we had 6 inches of snow fall overnight. 

Jack and I had lunch on the porch, then late afternoon had befores outside as well. Sitting on the porch, looking out at the raised beds we could see the garlic was up 4 to 6 inches. We wandered out that way and figured out how to do a temporary fix on the deer fence. The deer have been in the garden over the last week and you can see the tops of the garlic have been cropped off. They will be in for a surprise tonight when they come back for dessert. 

As long as we were out in the garden, we raked up the raised beds and planted three rows of chard. This is the earliest we have ever been able to get seeds in the ground. Pretty darned fabulous. Raking last year's mulch off the beds was rather instructive. The soil was alive with sow bugs, millipedes, centipedes and worms that had been warming up on the surface. A very busy community under all the straw. This beetle was particularly nice. I've seen many similarly shaped black beetles, but the bright blue edges on this one made it spectacular. It is hard to see in the photo, the blue disappears, but his wing cases are edged in blue as are the shield wings on his pronutum. So cool.

Our peonies are beginning to poke up through the soil as well. I love this stage-- little alien growths. The deer leave these alone--or at least they did last year. 

Meanwhile in our bird world, the yard is noisy, absolutely filled with overlapping songs. The house finches are pairing up and the males sing long complicated songs in the tops of the trees. They are also busy feeding their chosen female in part of their wooing ritual. Great fun to watch.

We have a pair of flickers that spent the winter in the yard and are both still with us.  They are very busy at our suet feeders giving us a really good look at them. This is the male, the female does not have the red on her face.