Spring MIGHT Just Be On Its Way

Despite the fact that it's still 90% winter outside our door (and that 7-12" of the white stuff is predicted to fall between tonight and tomorrow night), we have seen two sure signs of spring: the first robin day-before-yesterday, and four geese flying north yesterday. So, spring might still actually arrive to the northeastern
tip of Minnesota . . . sometime!

I posted the new April picture of the house/yard this morning. I surely thought that this picture would look MUCH different when I commented about how similar the December, January, February, and March pictures looked, but it doesn't! It was only on Wednesday that the warm sun melted through the snow-packed paths enough in one spot to reveal the slate walkways underneath (bottom right on this picture).


Tom and I have been trying to take walks each night when he gets home from work now, and we checked out the latest logging site that "our" loggers have been working on - just east of our place - a week or so ago. It opened up a beautiful new vista of our river from an angle that we hadn't been able to see before. (You'll have to click on the picture to enlarge it if you want to see the distant river and its tributaries.)


Tom (and the dogs - Maisy with one of her usual massive rocks in her mouth) climbed up to the top of one of the lumber piles to give a perspective of the size of some of the trees the loggers are taking. Fortunately, many of these are fast-growing trees that will replace themselves.

I'm sure it's Murphy's Law that the snow is lasting so long this winter/spring . . . because I want to get the greenhouse built on the south side of the chicken house. I can't wait! And, I'm sorely behind on chicken house up-keep. The nest boxes need fresh litter, and the couple of feet on the south side that has melted free of snow has now become a quagmire of mud and chicken poop. Nice. I've been trying to get to the local lumber yard to pick up fresh wood shavings for weeks, it seems, but one thing or another has interfered. It's getting to the drastic point now, though, and I'll absolutely have to get it done this coming week.

Tom and I went to Duluth (3 hours, one way) for dental appointments on Wednesday. The deer are SOOOO thick along the highway right now. We would have lost count had we tried to number them all, but I'll bet we saw easily 400-500 combining the down and back trips. At least it's "good" for the auto-body shops!

Anyway, Menards was having a door sale, so we picked up the door for the closet in the utility room ("Tom's closet") . We plan to put that in this weekend. Every little bit of forward progress counts, right?!