I Love Spring!

I think it might really and truly be spring here in Oregon -- Yea Spring!!!

It's been sunny here for three days straight. The mud is drying up, as is "Lake Koons" - the giant puddle which had been taking over more and more of Koons St. I was getting ready to set up shop with a swan-boat business. When spring hits western Oregon and the Willamette valley, you realize why people have been sticking out the wet and dark winters here for so long. Spring is beautiful here. The colors are unbelievable -- not just the intense greens, but the pinks and creams and purples of azaleas and rhodies and lilacs. The Woodburn tulip festival finished up last weekend, but the last of the tulips are still there -- fields and fields of them. Today driving back from Salem I noticed a huge field of iris I hadn't seen last year. They're just starting to bud, but they should be spectacular in a couple of weeks (hopefully just about the time mom and the bubbas get out here).

I've been spending tons of time out in my "new" yard. Major overhaul after winter storms took down the massive spruce which dominated the backyard. I hired someone to do the heavy labor -- take out the tree, grind the stump, haul in a couple truckloads of soil to even out the yard and take care of some drainage issues and lay a bunch of new sod. Now I'm doing the fun part -- planting trees and shrubs and perennial beds, laying drip irrigation, and generally being amazed at how different the yard looks and how much it changes day to day. It's a great project for keeping me busy during my "on-call" weekends, when I have to be in town and ready to run to the hospital, but there's nothing actually going on. Digging in the yard staves off the "caged animal" feeling I sometimes get during quiet stretches.

The top picture are bleeding hearts I put in the shade garden almost a month ago. They were un-fazed by late freezes and are already bigger than they were supposed to get (I'm thinking the "dwarf" label was a lie, as they are already knee-high in their first year). The bottom photo is of the tulips mom put in the front yard when she and dad were here at Thanksgiving. The crocuses came up much earlier of course, but were quickly overshadowed by the wild hyacinth-y things that no-one knows the name of. They continue to take over the front, even though I've pulled up as many of them as I could the last two years after they bloomed. I even hit some in the backyard with round-up, which didn't seem to faze them. Oh well, at least they're mildly attractive.

Happy Easter and Springtime Wishes

Hope you all have a joyous Easter and that your weather is better than that in NM. This photo of desert poppy was taken while hiking in the Dona Anna mountains near Las Cruces a few weeks back. Here in Lyden, after our Easter weekend on Conchas Lake was cut short, it is cold and snowy. I would have taken a photo but it is spring, and I didn't really want to remember a snowy cold day.

The Taos Ski area closes after tomorrow's festivities and John and Chamisa will be busy getting the boating season underway. Prospects are big for a busy high water year as there is still plenty of snow in "them there hills".

Our next update will bring photos of the Grand Canyon after Carl and I do a bit of hiking in the big ditch in a few weeks.