Spring is here

I was walking out to greet one of my clients so we could properly admire the irises and wood hyacinths and the poppies that are blooming.  While we were doing that, we noticed a lot of commotion in the junipers that make the backdrop for that garden.  Investigation revealed a young robin being escorted about during its fledgling flight.   He “toddled” up into my redbud tree and posed just long enough for me to run in and get my camera.   After the photo op was done, he listened to the exhortations of his mama and papa and left the area, gliding across the street and coming to a crash landing near a planter beside the house next door.   His parents flew right over there and began yelling at him to get his ass off the ground and up in the maple tree forthwith before some damn cat came along.   So he did.  Here he is, and probably the earliest I have ever seen a robin at this stage of development around here.

As if that wasn’t enough good news, after that massage was over I proceeded around the place and noticed the fruit set on the Shiro plum:

The little apples are not to be outdone.   Hedging their bets against a late frost, you can see that not only do they have fruit set in large quantities, they are still blooming as well.   We will definitely have to do some thinning, but I believe we are going to get some apples this year.  Guess those bees I saw earlier got the job done.   Hooray!

I have been working on planting creepers between the flagstones of the stroll garden path.   The spot where I have the Creeping Jenny is looking real fine.    I planted creeping thyme elsewhere, but it is too small to be as impressive as this section.

Now all I have to do is keep weeding the plantain and grass out of there, and I’ll have something that looks fantastic in about two years. 

Jim has been out working his butt off in the vegetable garden.    The sandstone pavers we bought last year at the auction are being laid now.   They even have their gravel packing in between them.   We learned that if you only level them on the sand without the filling between them, when you have a thunderstorm the sand washes away and your beautiful pavers are no longer level.   

Now is that beautiful or what?    For some strange reason, he is tired and wants me to go put together the salad.   Guess I’d better git.