Wednesday Wandering

Crocus outside the back door. They are sprinkled throughout the lawn here and there. I planted them in one patch about 20 years ago but the squirrels evidently thought they looked a lot better scattered here and there. And I think I agree. 

Down in the woods...

...loud cackling...a grackle (or starling?) murmuration...hundreds (maybe thousands?) of birds first gather together in the trees then they all of a sudden dive down to the ground of the surrounding fields in search of seeds and insects...a sea of black...

...then they gather once again in the trees and with a very loud swooping noise they are gone...a black cloud moving on to the next spot. It's mesmerizing. 

A lot of the fields are still snow and ice covered even though it has been in the 60s the last couple of days. 

I took advantage of the warm weather to work outside in short sleeves and hubby snuck and took a pic and emailed it to me. (Weirdo!)

It doesn't look like it but I spent some time cleaning up the asparagus patch. There are three rows of asparagus. In the spring I cut back the old stalks and weed around them. I'm basically an organic gardener so I use whatever  I can to keep weeds down. Here I put down old plastic water softener salt bags in the paths. Then I sometimes throw old dried weeds on top. Those bags in the path have been there for at least 10 years or so. April is usually when the first asparagus shoots appear. I wanted to get out and clean up the path because I never know when if the April showers will keep me out of the gardens. 

I also cleaned up the patch where I will plant lettuce, spinach, mustard greens and radishes. I usually just broadcast a bunch of seeds and cover lightly and keep watered. I hope to plant those seeds near the end of March so the April showers will keep the patch watered. 

I see a lot of green in the strawberry patch. I hope the deer don't notice. 

This is the entire strawberry patch. I don't have to mulch it. Mother Nature does. We have a lot of trees around and just the right amount of leaves seem to magically fall and cover the patch in the Autumn. 

I spy red shoots of rhubarb. 

A small Black Walnut tree recently fell near the corner of the veggie garden and took out the end post of the grape arbor. 

We seem to be constantly cleaning up fallen trees. I try to chop up the smaller limbs to use on garden paths or mulch. I'm running out of places for brush piles. That's an old chicken coop that's rotting away. And there's two old swing sets sans swings there that I was going to string and use for flower trellises. 

In the flower garden I see some Surprise Lilies sprouting up. 

In my new native wildflower area I'm excited to see some sprouts...

 ...of Camassia (aka camas, quamash, Indian Hyacinth, Camash, Wild Hyacinth) which is the only thing planted there so far. How exciting!