Finally, Purple Martins

After 15 years of trying to attract Purple Martins to nest in what was once his Grandpa Check's martin house, Jeffrey has finally succeeded! Over the years he's cleaned and repainted the house, put it up, taken it down, shushed away sparrows, cut trees for a better glide path. This spring he even bought the decoy which perches on the top of it. For whatever reason, on Sunday there were 2 pair of martins checking it out, and now they are building nests in it! Yippee!

Running a Little Late

Yesterday, the first day of summer, seemed more like a spring day here in Newton. It was cool, rainy, and foggy. Around 1:00 in the afternoon this guy came strolling up the driveway. He was crossing the road from the neighbor's pond, presumably heading for our pond. About 2 weeks ago a smaller turtle had made the same yearly, spring  trip (with the help of a neighbor and myself in order to avoid the "traffic" on our road). After this photo-op he strolled off heading toward the pond. About an hour later I spotted him heading up the road and another neighbor was helping him out of traffic. Not only was he a little bit late for the "spring" crossing, he couldn't find the pond. She shushed him into the ditch, and hopefully he's in our pond, now, with his  friend. Better late than never.

A LONG TIME COMING

I like to think that I'm the type of person who has enough interests to stay busy, no matter what the circumstances. Even though winters get long around here, Jeffrey and I snowmobile, I do lots of art and crafting, I volunteer for different things at church,  and I still work in our office. In spite of all that, winter seemed never-ending. Then, to top it off, we've had a cold, wet spring. Well, FINALLY, the nice weather is here. I have my vegetable garden all planted, the tulips and daffodils have long bloomed and are drying out, and peonies, bridal wreath, and irises are opening. It's been a long time coming. Admittedly, our 3 1/2 acres is a lot of work, but I love all of it.