From the Backyard

Explored the backyard this beautiful afternoon taking "inventory" of everything coming to life, and thus all the work that will need to be done.

There's a million and one baby box elders that will need to be plucked.
Here's the "one."

The strawberries are starting to spring back to life. Going to have to trim them up and cut off any new runners soon.

Our tiny azaleas have started to bloom. They'll need to be fed some acidic vitamin goodness.

The "Sweet Williams" are blooming, and I can smell them as soon as I walk out the back door (as long as my Claritin-D has kicked in). I don't think that's really what they're called, but everyone I know calls them that - so I guess we'll just chalk it up to being Appalachian. They also pronounce Clematis vines as "Clem-nis."

The red raspberries have leafed out. We cut them back every year. They keep taking over.

Here's a very small portion of the majestic "Raspberry Forest" in the backyard. About half of our five acres consists of wild red raspberries.

The dandelions have taken over, too. They're even growing out of the rocks!

The honey bees don't seem to mind. It's nice to see them out and about! Come on honey bees! Survive!!

The grass was climbing up my legs. Tim's already mowed once this year. Guess I know what he'll be doing tonight.

Clover and I decided to take a minute to check our hot houses where we attempted to overwinter some vegetables.

There was so much condensation! And you could see the green peeking through the plastic. I knew it was probably all weeds.

So, I think my heart skipped about four beats when I opened the plastic and found baby lettuces! Not only did the seedlings we planted survive the winter, but now they're growing strong (amongst the weeds) and we're ahead of schedule for fresh greens.

The parsnips survived, too! They're the long stalky plants. You can just ignore those weeds. hehe

Add... to top it off and make me one proud garden mommy: the baby spinach is growing strong, too. Not all of it survived, but that's actually a good thing. With all the spacing now, maybe we'll get spinach before they bolt.

And these little flowers were taking over the greens' bed. Too bad they'll have to be pulled. They are quite pretty.