One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today. – Dale Carnegie
In my mind, this post was going to take on a slightly different slant, but then Sue sent me this beautiful photo of the old-fashioned climbing rose growing over at the “dinky house”. It is so genuine and gorgeous. Easiest care rose around this place. It grows when it’s time, blooms when it wants; is as happy as punch if you simply remember to water it every once in a while. Brings a smile to my face whenever I think about it. Got me thinking – what else around our farm gets us smiling? Turns out that there’s quite a lot that does! I really need to think about this today.

For Sue and I both, the enjoyment of watching those silly chickens, ducks and geese, just helps the worst day seem better. Perhaps, if you’ve not been around chickens for any length of time, you wouldn’t believe that; but it’s the truth!!!  The other clowns around here are the Goat Boys. They are forever getting into trouble, but then they look at you so innocently that you have to laugh at them. They’re always boinging off of something, or being chased by the rooster, or trying to get into the chicken food. Mischief makers are they. Today they had their hooves trimmed and were actually, mostly, well behaved. Silly boys. Oh – and Thumper is all better now, his foot is no longer swollen and he doesn’t seem to be favoring it at all anymore. Good news for him, maybe not so much for us since he is the chief trouble maker of the two. 🙂

The enjoyment of working with the plants and trees is something I greatly look forward to. Did I mention that we got the climbing roses planted out front before my parents came? Mom gave them to Sue for her birthday last year – they were bare root, so we planted them in containers first to make sure they were good and solid before planting them out in the soil. It took us a while to get them out there, but once I started planting… I didn’t want to stop. Had to though. I know that we talk a lot about the tumble weeds and the fact that everything you don’t want, seems to grow so quickly, Sue was pulling weeds and whacking them down for many hours even today; but it is sometimes a simple joy to be able to just get out and do the mundane. Yesterday I started watering some of the trees around the house, ended up pruning while I watered. Didn’t want that to stop either. Sometimes its difficult to get out there once I get home, but when I do start… I just want to do that for all the days. Maybe I should see if I can word for our neighbor Tom who owns a landscape design business. Nah. I’d rather just make the time to do it here. We have grand plans, I’d like to help achieve them. Many of the trees and bushes that we were afraid might not come back from the exceptionally cold winter, have actually come back. We lost one fruit tree, and had some damage done to one large lavender bush, but – so far, that seems to be it. Our Mulberry tree by the chicken run even has berries on it this year!!! So cool. Maybe we’ll make Mulberry wine – oooo wouldn’t that be fun?!! That’s a photo of our Mulberry tree, those little green globules are the berries to be. We don’t know if it’s a white, red, or black mulberry tree as this is the first time it’s had berries, so we’ll all find out together!

I just want to say this one more thing. It is so nice to come home and be in this beautiful area of which we find ourselves care-takers. It’s wonderful to work with the animals. For Easter, Sue gave me a cute t-shirt that says, “chickens make me happy” – and it’s true. Just sayin’. So don’t forget – Smell the roses. Smell the coffee. Whatever it is that makes you happy. – Rita Moreno I guess I could add: Smell the chickens. We invite you to come and see/smell for yourself. Until then, as always~
Thanks for reading!

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Today’s Weather: Quite lovely. High seems to have been around 81° – our overnight low only 48° tonight. Currently, at 5:42 p.m., it is 79°, sunny, with 16% humidity. Winds are NNW at around 10 mph. Calm is wonderful. Maybe slightly warmer tomorrow, but mostly another carbon copy of today.

Egg Report: Tuesday – 34 chicken, 2 duck, 1 goose. Wednesday – 44 chicken, zero duck, zero goose.  Oh, still no baby ducks.

As a side note: I sure am glad my mom made short bread before she left. Mmmmm.