good thing i'm not afraid of bees

Spring is springing wildly here at "the end of the trail." (That is how one of the neighbor's cousins described our location.)

The daffodils are long gone, but now there is an explosion of small blooms - purple, white, blue, yellow - and the strawberries on the south slope are starting to put out their first flowers. I'm not sure whether they are small domestic or large wild plants.

Bumblebees are everywhere blooms are found, which is everywhere, and a few honeybees are showing up. Butterflies and juvenile grasshoppers are making an appearance as well. The variety of avian life is increasing; robins came through in force weeks ago and a few stayed behind, but there are many more species that I have heard but not yet seen. Yesterday I saw and heard a couple of ravens, a nice change from the ubiquitous crows.

We had a broken tree cut down on the east slope. The trunk had snapped, about 6 feet above the ground, in a storm before we moved in. The top portion was still attached to the 6 foot high stump and lay at an angle across the hillside. Chris, the neighbor's cousin, does tree work for a living. He was over here the other day and volunteered to cut the trunk into pieces for us. The slope looks a lot nicer now, and we can use the logs to terrace the hill a bit to reduce erosion.

Later today I will be cutting the grass at Ruth's house and probably doing some other yard work. We are supposed to be getting sporadic rain over the next few days and I'd like to get things done before the grass grows any taller.