This is our first spring on the acreage (we did not begin moving until the end of July last year) and we have enjoyed observing the flora wake up around the place. All along the front yard are lilacs, and next to the garage is an ornamental tree that had beautiful red blossoms. A couple of windy days filled the air with the helicopter seeds from the maples. There are large amounts of tiny cones on the pine trees, and I don’t know if it is normal or not that they have so many. The variety of butterflies is surprising, as we had very few in the city, while out here we see them everyday. There are a wide assortment of birds here: robins, sparrows, grackles, finches, blackbirds, orioles, thrashers, a chicken hawk and a bald eagle. We had two squirrels, but I have only seen one in the last few weeks, so maybe the hawk got it. We had two rabbits living under the machine shed but the hawk got one of those. The eagle carried away a dead possum that was on the road the other day after the turkey vultures had picked at it for awhile. The toads will croak day and night when there is water in the ditches, but are quiet when they dry up. All the farm fields around us are planted and the crops are coming up. We planted a small vegetable garden with tomatoes, green beans, green peppers and cauliflower, and if it goes well this year we will most likely expand it next year. We have taken in a fugitive, but everything is fine. Our daughter could not keep her husky mix dog Steve anymore because he kept running off and upsetting neighbors. Finally the town council told her the next time would bring a $1,000 fine, so she asked if we would take him. Our dog Marley was already familiar with Steve and they get along fine. A few times I have seen Steve walk out to the road and stare off for a few minutes in all directions. Seeing there is nowhere for him to go, he trots back into the yard of his little island in the country. Time will tell if his wanderlust carries him away.

Before we could mow the grass on the acreage for the first time this year we had to pick up the wood debris that had been blown down by the fierce winter winds. The majority of the trees here are white willows, a beautiful tree that sways in the wind, until it breaks. We are nearing the end of this chore, begun several weeks ago, and totaling dozens of large garbage cans and totes full of twigs and sticks, while the larger branches and limbs are tossed onto the brick foundation where a corn crib used to be, to be cut down to size with a miter saw or a chainsaw. We have been having fires in our outdoor hearth and our stone campfire ring to get rid of the excess wood. Once the containers are empty we fill them back up in the next couple of days from a different section of the yard and have another fire. And another. When we lived in the city I carefully maintained several boxes of dry kindling in our small garage for our fires in the hearth on our deck, never dreaming that we would someday have such a surplus of wood we could have roaring fires several times a week. An embarrassment of riches, but I have followed my old habits and put up many totes of wood in the shed, and stacked wood close to the fire ring for future use. There is nothing else to do with the rest, so we have been enjoying more spring campfires than I think we ever have before.