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.

Long Days

I love that the days are getting longer. And I love all the activity that's going on in our yard. This is one of the 3 pair of geese with babies that are visiting the pond these days. I think there are 8 in this photo.  Another pair has 5. There is a 3rd pair, but they are still a little timid, so I don't know how many babies they have.

I did a stupid thing last spring. I planted about 7 wild raspberry bushes on the south edge of  my vegetable garden. Well, duh, they totally overtook that end of the garden. I spent 3 hours today digging out MANY tiny raspberry plants. I had to get rid of the original 7, too.

And another event of the day was the return of the turtle. Last spring I posted on my Facebook page pictures of the turtle that comes from our neighbor's pond, crosses the road, and finds her way to our pond for the summer. I was just thinking about her when I was digging out the raspberry bushes from hell. Well, late this aft while in my kitchen baking a cake for my father-in-law, I saw a jeep come to a screeching halt in front of the house. So I walked out to the road to find a neighbor from about 2 miles south on Union Rd. frantically trying to direct a snapping turtle out of traffic! (These days traffic is lots of HUGE tractors pulling planters and othr equipment.) My turtle was back!  I got a shovel from the garage and we scooped her up. Just as we were carrying her to the side of the road, the 4 PM school bus came along, stopped, and the little kids on the bus were totally jazzed about our "rescue"!

Such are the long spring days here in Newton. They're pretty simple, but I love them.

Nature or Nuture?

Jeffrey and I gave this book to my mom for Christmas, 1980. She loved to feed and watch the wild birds. My dad raised and raced  homing pigeons. So I wonder, is my love for bird watching due to nature or nuture? Yesterday around my feeders, I had yellow finches, orange orioles, and red cardinals. Throw in spritzes of brown sparrows, and red wing blackbirds, and it was something akin to an artist's palette. After 5 months of winter, it was eye candy, really.
So, last night I sat down with one of my art journals and colored pens and started listing all the birds I've seen in, around, or flying over our yard. The result was 40 different birds. I started with the littlest one, the hummingbird, and worked my way up to the 4 ft. sandhill crane. So glad spring is finally here.

BLISS FELT HERE

I suppose this makes it official. My studio REALLY IS my blissroom. My long-time friend, encourager, enlightener, and fellow artist, Linda, was home for a 10-day visit. She surprised me with this very wonderful banner for my newly cleaned and rearranged blissroom. It is SO Linda, filled with the most wonderful embellishments of all kinds, ephemera, flowers, and uses pretty, pretty pastels which I love. So now when I'm going through one of those non-creative, barren dryspells, I know where I'll look for a little creative inspiration. Bliss.

Is it settled then?

Just how long will we be capable of maintaining our 3 1/2 acres here in Newton? Fifteen years ago it seemed effortless to mow, trim, plant, weed. But the task seems to be getting bigger as the years pass. It's not like we have a "Ponderosa" sized place, but the trees, shrubs, pond, orchard, vegetable garden, perenniel beds make for a lot of work. We love it all, but it's a lot of work. Last week we got this little tree, for free, at Lowe's. It 's the exact same size that Daddy's was when he gave it to me 14 years ago. So if he makes it OK and we let him get to the size of my dad's tree planted out in the front berm, we could plan on another 14 years here, God permitting! Is it settled then? We'll see!