Happy Valentine’s Day!
It’s a beautifully rainy day. It’s also not too cold to have the windows open to enjoy the sounds of nature. I have a fire going but only for ambiance. I can hear the wind blowing through my chimes and the raindrops falling from the roof and tree branches. It’s wonderful.
I’ve lost track of how much rain we’ve received over the past couple weeks – over 8 inches. The ground is literally soupy – and I live on a hill – so I can’t imagine what the low lying areas must look like now.
On a quick drive into town today I noticed the streams are swollen and running rapidly. Ponds and lakes that were limping along and greatly reduced in size are literally back to the sizes they were when I first moved here 5 years ago. And much to my (and the geese’s) delight, my own pond is high again. In fact, the past two years it was so low that a big boulder was exposed by the receding water. As of last week, that boulder disappeared again.
My favorite part of this monsoon season is the geese can now swim without climbing out of the pond dirtier than when they entered it. My white geese looked they had been making mud pies, not cleaning their lovely long feathers.
AND rain means there’s no ice – woohoo! The spring peepers started singing from the pond again a couple nights ago. Song birds rarely make a sound during winter but I’ve been hearing the early birds singing already. They’ve been flying around with bits to construct their nests – things like straw, dry grasses, my chickens feathers and locks of Luca’s fur. I’m always amused by the nests I find after storms. Some birds have great taste in home décor. I can always tell the Target birds vs the Versace birds by how creatively they adorn their little love nests.
Promising signs of warmer weather are beginning to show. Blades of grass are greening up, the daffodils and other bulb plants are already 4 inches high and Poppy has started laying!
Hopefully, Magnolia will follow her mother’s lead and start to lay as well. I can hardly wait for gosling season – which, if all goes well, I should have hatchlings in less than two months. Swooon!
So, for all intents and purposes, spring is stirring. I couldn’t be happier. Let it rain, let it green.
xo