Swans on the lake

If there's one beautiful thing we can anticipate in early spring, it's swans. Specifically tundra swans, which come in every year to nest in the marshes.

These magnificent, majestic birds arrive by the thousands, filling the air with their hooting as they engage in courtship rituals and search for food.

It's just something else, to see so many at one time casually going about their business.

It's almost better to photograph them from higher up (as opposed to the water's edge) because it's easier to see the sheer number.

Yes, sometimes it's good to step back and remember how beautiful God's green earth is.

It must be spring

It must be spring. We had our first yearling get out.

This is Peggy, who is Pixie's daughter (and my beloved Polly's granddaughter). I went out to do barn chores a couple of mornings ago, and she was calming grazing in the barn, snacking on hay.

The question is, how did she escape? The snow is still a foot deep in most places, and much higher in mounds where it slid off roofs or where we had to pile it out of the driveway. Besides -- as should be obvious -- walking through snow leaves footprints (or hoof prints, in this case) -- and none were visible anywhere. How did she escape?

This is our corral. You can see my footpath to the watertank, and the snow dump off the shop roof -- but no hoofprints. How did she escape?

So we shooed her back into the feed lot through a small postern gate. A couple hours later, she was out again. How???

The answer revealed itself as we scoured around the barn. We have a small bull pen annex to the barn with two pens, each with its own feed box. Since we don't have a bull at the moment, we seldom go into this annex, though the animals hang around the pens.

When Don built these feed boxes, he made large hatches so we could climb into the pen as needed. One of the hatches had come unlatched, and Peggy had figured out how to climb through. Mystery solved.

(Hatch open)

(Hatch closed)

Last week, we had one last feeble gasp of winter and got about four inches of snow.

But since then, the sun has been shining and the temperatures are rising into the 40s. Lovely!

Sometimes we'll get morning fog, always pretty.

Despite the widespread snow still covering the landscape, the season is unquestionably quickening. Yesterday while Don and I worked on tankards at the kitchen table, we were startled by a burst of liquid song on the front porch: a winter wren, whose tiny size disguises a huge and beautiful voice.

And later that afternoon, as I was taking Darcy for his afternoon walk, I saw my first robin!

On the way home from the walk, flocks of swans flew over, heading to the lake and their breeding grounds.

The "snow cave" curling off the roof of the chicken coop...

...finally collapsed.

Yep, it must be spring.

Just another cruddy day....

This time of year, we see a lot of Canada geese (the most common goose around here) flying south. Or north. Or east or west. It doesn't seem like these critters always have the best sense of direction since we see them heading every-which-way, but whatever. They're cool to watch.

We were walking Mr. Darcy on the road near a neighbor's house one afternoon when we heard the telltale honking of distant flying geese, but on an unprecedented scale. Sure enough, within a few minutes enormous quantities of geese flew over -- sadly, far too many to capture in a single camera frame. It was flock after flock after flock.

The noise was so loud the neighbors, whose house we were near, stepped outside to watch as well.

I'd never seen so many geese flying together at one time -- there were definitely hundreds, possibly thousands.

Even more beautiful than the geese are the swans. These are tundra swans, which breed in the nearby lake each March.

We don't see them fly over in the sheer quantities as we do geese, but there's something magical about swans flying overhead. They're easy to distinguish: Geese honk, swans hoot.

A few days ago, early in the morning long before dawn, I stepped out on the porch to get some firewood. Everything was silent, and the sky was clear with stars and a half-moon. Suddenly I froze at a noise: the sound of swans. I stood in the darkness, listening to their calls echoing through the black forest as they flew overhead. Their voices gradually faded as they moved farther away. It was one of those magical moments, a brief glimpse of heaven, to hear swans at night.

As Don likes to say, "Just another cruddy day in Paradise."

A good day

Have you ever had one of those good days where you get lots done and nothing goes wrong? Yesterday was one such day.

We've had about a week of unrelenting rain, often for 36 hours at a stretch. Obviously this limited any outdoor work. So when yesterday turned out to be dry, Don and I exploded outside and got stuff done. (I'll have more on each task in future blog posts.)

Don cut a great number of firewood rounds.

Later in the afternoon, I split the wood into an enormous stack.

Don fired up the tractor and did something he'd wanted to do for several weeks: clean out the manure that had piled up under the barn awning. It was a task that we didn't get done before the snow got deep, and it had piled up even more through the winter, so it was long overdue. We shooed the livestock down into the pasture for the day and he spent many hours scooping poop.

This is primo material to enrich a lucky pasture or garden once it's composted.

I made two chicken pot pies for our neighborhood potluck (it's our turn to host).

Then I released Matilda and Sean into the driveway area to let them stretch their legs...

...while I planted two thin twigs which are actually bare-root sweet cherry bushes we got in from a nursery this week.

The day even ended on a pretty note: Deer against a setting sun...

...and swans flying overhead.

Perhaps our accomplishments yesterday seem modest, but in comparison to days and weeks of not being able to get anything done outdoors, we were left tired but smiling by evening. Yep, a good day.