Just in time for travel, a winter storm trudged across northern Michigan, dropping inches of mashed potatoes. I peeked out our bedroom window earlier to spy on the boys, and I am convinced they are as happy about the snow as we are, wet and lumpy as it is.
Fabulous weather again today. In a burst of outdoor productivity, I raked all the locust pods from the fall and storm detritus into ten – yes, ten! – piles. I was going to leave them to deal with tomorrow, but I’m a goalpost-mover, so I moved them tonight. The way I see it, all the lawn trash makes for good hole-filler and possible future compost pile starter.
In other productivity news,Tony and I surveyed the damage in our back acreage (there’s a lot – we have some chainsaw work ahead of us), and we picked a couple of potential saplings for transplanting. So there you have it – the mundane occurrences of a Monday in an atypical March. It’s refreshing to be outside getting stuff done so early in the year.
The horses have also been enjoying the warmth – and fresh greens. I took these pictures today – look at my post from 3/16 to see how much things have changed in four days. It sure feels like summer, even though it’s still technically winter.
Post kayak trip last night on the south end of Torch Lake. After a hot day, the cool Torch Lake-infused air had me dreaming of a campfire 
Yup – it’s a terrible idea. I’m doing it anyway: I officially have Spring Fever. Continue reading
Perhaps if I’d titled this blog “Spying on the Nay-bors” you might have thought me a bit less weird. Perhaps not. In the middle of cleaning up tonight’s dinner, I ran outside three – yes, three – separate times to photograph the sunset. Which felt a lot like spying, because my horse neighbors kept giving me questioning glances, but couldn’t quite tear themselves away from the delicious winter grasses they were munching. Continue reading
May delivers multiple payloads Up North. Your spring has likely come and mostly gone, on account of most of you live considerably farther south than me, but ours has really hit its stride. After a winter that hissy-fitted its way out, and a spring that sputtered its way in, we are relishing some of this month’s treats. For instance, we’ve been mushroom hunting on an every-couple-of-days schedule, and haven’t come home empty-handed since we started seeing the little delicacies. (Did you think I was going with devils there? If so, then clearly you haven’t tasted them!) Tony kicked my butt yesterday which is okay since it’s usually the other way around the woods are absolutely B-E-A-utiful right now. Maybe I didn’t find as many because I was too busy lying on the ground taking pictures of wildflowers? I recommend clicking to enlarge.
If you want to know what any of those I named “wildflower” are, feel free to ask my mom. She might even tell us in the comments if I prod her publicly like this 
I love you Mom
Speaking of flowers, the fruit trees have asploded. We drove up the peninsula to check out the orchards and were, like we often are while driving up the peninsula, distracted by the beauty of the rolling farms and nearby lake. Not all the trees are covered, but enough are that it’s magical just like a fresh, thick blanket of snow. The trees are cloaked in soon-to-be yummy fruit flowers (again, ask Mom on the particulars…I find it MUCH easier to identify the tree type when they are actually bearing fruit), and the ground is carpeted in dandelions. And as soon as you step out of the car to take a picture, the sweet scent of blossoms greets you as does the industrious hum of bees.
Do you remember Crazy Face? He’s our neighbor horse. (We have no idea what his real name is. For all we know it IS Crazy Face. In any case, that’s what we call him on this side of the fence.) He had a buddy in the pasture next to him, but he was quite old and I am sure Something Sad happened to him. However, we noticed the other day that he had a new buddy – Baby Crazy – and I got up yesterday morning and they were horsing around the pasture together. By which I mean they were horsing around. It was immensely cute, but I have no pictures of that show you since the camera’s battery required a recharge, so you’ll just have to take my word for it. However, here are some pictures I took this morning when they were mowing together.
Sorry for the meandering nature of this post. I had loads of pictures (I’ll bet you noticed!), and decided to share before things got nuts. You see, we have parents on the way, officially opening our bed-n-breakfast season, and then a trip to GA to help some of our best good friends move up here to be almost-neighbors! Weeee!
