the nature of things

Spring has picked up warp speed. Days are so full, and flying by. I continue trying to live it while I am in it. Some days find me deep in thought, and my emotions bubble up. I wonder, where are all those feely feelings coming from?

We bought our property in 2016. 7 years have passed, already! Most of you were along for the ride. We continue pouring our heart and souls into this land. Every single thing has been built from the ground up. We moved here in 2018. On Mother's Day weekend. The same weekend we moved into our first house, 20 years earlier. It has always been a pivotal and sentimental weekend for me. 

My mothers bench area is on a long list of things to finish. Her tree made it through the Winter and is in bloom on, you guessed it ~ Mothers Day weekend.

Remembrance Crocus
4/15/23

curly leaf species tulip
5/7/23

Hummingbirds and Orioles were spotted earlier this month. For the first time both of our nesting boxes are occupied!!*  The favored box that housed a Bluebird family last year was occupied first.

*Unfortunately I just rechecked Box 1 (5-15-23) and found a dreaded Starling IN the box!! Even after I knocked and took a photo...UGH!! Now that I look at the two sets of eggs, Box 1 eggs are larger than the eggs in Box 2. Box 1 has bad mojo!

four bluebird eggs, in favored box 2

(last year there were five eggs)

two eggs and counting, in box 1
5/12/23

Like all the other farmers in the area, Brad has been busy trying to get weather delayed field work done. I wish I could help, but know little to nothing about field work. Other than it takes priority. Our horses need to eat!!

He did squeak in one land project this Spring. Brad redid the little but steep hill I mention every now again when I write about walking our property. He took care of "two birds with one stone" by using a pile of our leftover sandy soil fill (dug out from the horse shed) to regrade the hill. 

Once the grass takes, we will be able to hoof/wheel/walk up and down ~ all year round!

Last year I decided to try planting a few dried Trillium tubers I purchased, in two different locations. I was SO excited to find them growing in our Enchanted Forest area! I am watching for a bloom.

5/5/23

a lucky find
5/12/23

Last year, I found two four leaf clovers in the same area on our property.

While recovering earlier this year, I added about a dozen drawings to my phenology journal. Using my past phone photos as reference. It is fun to page through the journal!

As for Hope, I mentioned to Brad "I cannot believe how one little horse changes everything". 

Change. The one guarantee in life. Everything has changed. Including me.

I fell off the blogger train and am SO behind on sharing all things Hope. Hope-filly I can sit long enough to do a condensed catch-up post on her, sooner than later. I hope!!

While walking past our windows last weekend, I saw our barn in a new light.

I turned my attention to the West. It stopped me in my tracks.

Do you see what I see? 

5/7/23

It made my eyes water. I am so grateful to be here, for this beautiful mess.

Happy Mothers Day

loud squawker's

Yesterday's hike-a-bout with the Labs was all kinds of interesting. You may recall it was cooler. So much, that I wore a flannel shirt and didn't get hot until the very end of my slow stroll. It lasted about 45 minutes, much to this guys dismay:

Tank waiting, again

I hauled my camera, altho I didn't expect to see anything interesting. I figured all the wild critters would be in hiding, sleeping in the fresh cool air. Mmmmm, it felt so good to not have thick air!! Birds were chirping away, but our trees are so full it is rare to actually see one.

Jameson & Tank did pretty good with my frequent ooh's and aah's, stopping to take photos with my camera and my phone.

??

smooth spiderwort, still blooming!

??

I've concluded I stink at identifying wild thangs. I checked the amazing wildflower resource Val shared with me, and searched google image for the two white flowers above. Many look similar, but foliage doesn't match up. My gardener brain said the top flower resembles baby's breath (it is not) and the second one looks like anemone foliage (it is not). No doubt they are common flowers. They could be flowering weeds, and not official WI wild flowers. We have a lot of white phlox blooming too.

Anywho, onto the rest of yesterday's walk - and - I am not even going to try to ID the rest of my finds!! You are welcome ~ ha haa!!

medium sized feather

a very large smashed egg

At first I thought perhaps the above was a smashed mushroom, but there are what looked like shattered shell edge pieces. No, I didn't touch it or spend too much time investigating. I didn't want to labs to slurp up whatever it is, or was. Bleh!!

only saw one winged wonder

We entered the pines and got the crap scared out of us (okay, just me) no less than three times. Enormous pterodactyl sized turkey BURST from the tops of the pines! I tried to get photos, but ~ ya, let's just say I wasn't holding my camera still. I was determined to fire away the third time, annnnd when they surprised me yet again my camera had fallen asleep. Sigh. It was a sizable flock, and all I could think of was I was glad I wasn't trail riding! The turkey are loud squawker's and fly overhead outta nowhere. They can be mean when they want to, but I had my trusty guard dogs with me. Tank would hide behind me, but I think Jameson would come to my rescue.

The rest of our hike was quieter entertainment. I found more 'shrooms:

ordinary small mushrooms popped up in many places 

I oooh'ed and ahhh'ed over these minuscule mushrooms

If you look closely, there are pink even tinier mushrooms growing to the left of the lowest white delicate mushroom. I didn't even see the pinky's, until I processed the photo. The white ones are very delicate looking. They have a thin single stem, with a cool design for an umbrella top. Apparently for stylish tiny woodland fairies to take cover from the rain.

I instantly thought of Val, when I saw this disgusting glob of who knows what?!! Ha ha, sorry but it's true. It looks like someone forgot their brains. I decided it was a glob of some kind of fungus, after all it was growing among mushrooms.

closeup with my iphone
caught an ant enjoying the weird delicacy

As I rounded the corner out of the main pine trail, there was Tank. Patiently waiting. Shown above. We continued with our hike, saw more of the wildflowers and ordinary mushrooms. These days, instead of crossing the tall hay fields we walk around the field borders on mowed paths (thanks Brad!) Tinkerbell hopped off the parked hay equipment and joined us on the last leg of our hike.

newer trail between the arena's
(Tank, Tinkerbell and Jameson)

We took the path towards the back of our indoor. It still looks the same. Piles of fines, dumpster and even a portapotty that no one uses. It continues to get cleaned regularly (what a waste of resources). Looks like it will remain until the builders finish up. We are now looking at end of July, maybe even August. I hope sooner than later. I am more than ready for Brad to be done endlessly working, and move on. I want to ride my horse!!

Tinkerbell was done walking with us.

She plopped down and hung out in the middle of our desert.

Our weather is suppose to continue to be pleasant through the weekend. I plan to enjoy more hikes among nature. However, before I completely bore you guys with my many observations ~ my next post will be more horse related. Y'all have a wonderful weekend!!

 

smell the pines

The past few weeks have been so busy, we haven't had time to work on our land. We did take a nice hike in the woods, and then walked the sunny loop.

The wooded paths do not connect, yet. We had to do some bush whacking & branch diving between the trails. It doesn't seem like we have that much left to clear, but in reality it will take much longer then appears. 

It is so interesting to see how the forest (and land) in general changes week to week... 

The spooky tree arms, 'er branches almost got Brad!!

Can't wait to ride the "spooky tree" trail we began creating,
with a little help from our deer friends.

Once we were out of the woods, the wildflowers that were spotty and struggling for light, stood out in bright patches along the edges of the loop...

I really like these bright orange & yellow flowers

Who knew spiderwort was a native wildflower? 

A sea of yellow

Yesterday after a very warm indoor ride at the barn, we hauled our mower for some long overdue mowing. You could hardly tell we had storms and a much needed dump of rain the night before, but you could sure smell it...mmmm...we took deep inhales...and longer exhales...instant smell of pines, from across the field...wow!!!

I've smelled pines many times before, even during rain, but never like that - it was soooo fresh! I don't know what it is about this property, but it's so quiet and serene...and offers instant relaxation.

Eventually we got to work. If that's what you want to call it.

Brad mowing the field island we cleaned up a while ago

Puttering along mowing one of the existing trails,
while my guy clears fallen wood ahead of me

 Brad blazed a trail through the grassy area,
until he got to the hill

 left or right?
left trail: towards the fields
right trail: further into the woods

Speaking of fields, second crop of alfalfa is done and the pasture grass we planted is looking good! So are the weeds, but those should be gone soon. 

pasture

We took one more looong look around...sigh...we already can't wait to call this home! Better get cracking on those house plans!! This land was such a unique find, don't know how we got so lucky?! I believe it was one of those things that was meant to be. If your a believer, you know what I mean...we are so grateful.

Before we left, we drove over to the area where the wild cactus grows more prevalent - they are just starting to bloom!!