Which one is not like the others...

This is the time of year when everything with feathers is laying eggs like crazy. 

The ducks sneak into the chicken coop and settle down in the corners to pop out their eggs.  They are rather coy about it and try to keep a low profile, but it's always obvious when one of theirs is added to the chickens'. 
















But, when  the goose gets to work, their eggs are massively impressive.  Can you figure out which one is theirs? 

I have it on good authority that goose eggs are good to eat.

Planting Time

Life has a way of thwapping me upside the head from time to time in its efforts to remind me to slow down and focus my full attention on the task at hand.  Put another way, I don't think my brain is nimble enough to multi-task.  At least, not around this place.

 Earlier this week I got home from school and rushed outside to plant flower and  vegetable seeds before it got dark.  My mind was consumed by a jumble of school thoughts as I set up at the picnic table: big bag of potting soil, seeds, plastic pots and trays and a watering can. I reached into the bag and scooped soil into each pot, then patted everything down and lined them up on the trays.  With barely a thought on what I was doing, I indented the soil in each pot with my finger, dropped in a seed or two and firmed them in. 

It was only when I began watering them that something determinedly wiggling from the center of one of the pots caught my eye.  I leaned closer and closer as I tried to figure out what this skinny, yellowy-green thing was, poking up and waving at me.  And then, just as the horrible realization hit that the thing was a creature's leg, a small, extremely pissed off Pacific Tree Frog burst from the earth like Lazarus from the tomb. 

Froggy long gone by the time I got out my camera

Yes. I'd planted a frog (upsidedown, as it turned out).  As he huffed across the table, shedding a tiny trail of dirt, I did the only thing I could think of -- picked up the watering can and sprinkled him.  I don't think that this was appreciated.  However, I do believe that both the frog who had been snoozing in the bag and the teacher who had been obessing about school were both suddenly very much in the present moment.

Frogpond Zen -- not subtle.

We takes what we can gets

A bit of rain.  Not enough to raise the level of the pond by any noticeable amount, but enough to keep our grass and spring wildflowers going for a little while longer. 

Last evening when I got home and stood on the porch, a delicious sea of resinous scents from all the new growth on the hillsides surrounded me. Above the pond, the violet-green swallows were still swooping and darting after insects and somewhere a warbler was singing in the warm evening air.








It's getting late in the season and the storm window for the year is closing. 



Showers?

There's a 40% chance of showers tomorrow and a 70% chance tomorrow evening.  Keeping my fingers crossed that this comes our way.  It's been such a warm, dry spring that I wonder what the summer has in store for us...

Which one is not like the others?

Bruce and I have a small, Zuni Indian animal fetish collection.  Native American fetishes are objects of power, carved from semi-precious minerals.  However, they are never, as far as I know, fashioned from materials such as, say, strawberries from the local fruitstand.

See if you can spot the bear that was not handcrafted by Native Americans.

Cutting Trails

Today the temperature reached 89 degrees -- that's record breaking heat for this time of year.  The weeds are going insanely nuts, Bruce has been mowing like crazy and I'm weeding like there's no tomorrow. 

Today Bruce got on the Kubota tractor and cut trails -- without them, the stickers are so bad that the fields are almost impassable. 









My job was to go ahead to guide the tractor and scout for rocks sticking out of the ground. 

I multi-tasked and dug up thistles as I waited for Bruce to chug along to where I was -- we must have let a lot of them go to seed last year, because there are LOTS of them.  The biggest clumps are clustered beneath trees, but they also are endlessly scattered throughout the hills.  I kept at it until Bruce had to go up for more diesel for the Kubota.  Then, hot and tired, I called it a day down there and came back up to the house to get some water and do some gardening.  There, I was greeted by the robust crop of thistles that are encircling the house. 


For all the people who actually pay money to gyms in order to use their fancy equipment for that all-important and scientifically targeted upper-body workout, I have this to say:  Come up to Frogpond.  Please.  I will hand over a shovel and point you to the nearest clump of thistles. 

Louis Leaves Frogpond

Less than a week after we rescued Louis and brought him home, we realized that integrating him into our lives here at Frogpond was going to be difficult.  At the heart of it was that Louis needed more constant human companionship than we could give him -- he's just that sort of dog.  Nonetheless, it still wouldn't have been easy to give him up, except that the perfect family for him materialized.  One of my mom helpers came to school to pick up her son after class and she was carrying the ancient family poodle, just back from the groomers.  The poodle lay curled in the crook of her arm like a royal baby and I laughed and asked if she'd like a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel -- and her eyes lit up and she said yes, she'd always wanted one.  All righty then!

So this morning the whole family, mom, dad, and the four children, showed up to meet and greet Louis and to take him home.  The children are wonderful -- kind, gentle and well-mannered.  We all took a walk to the pond and Louis was in his element, giving kisses, trotting on the end of his leash and loving being the center of the universe. 

When everyone gathered at their car to leave, I crouched down and held Louis' face in my hands and told him to be a good boy and take care of his children. He looked up at me with those earnest brown spaniel eyes and he seemed calm and happy.  But still it was hard to say goodbye.  I bravely kissed the white spot on the top of his head and then, without a backward glance, he hopped up into the backseat with the children.  And off they went with waves and thank yous.

I'm certain that Louis will have a good life with them.  {very small sigh}

The Power Pole Poppies

Earlier this week a nice young man from the power company came to clear the vegetation from around our main power pole, which sits just outside our orchard garden.  I understand the need to keep brush away from the poles with transformers on them, but it's unfortunate that we must have a 10 foot radius of blasted earth right outside a garden (I wish we'd thought about this before we sited it there).

This year I hand weeded most of the area around the pole myself before anyone from the power company came.  However I couldn't bring myself to pull up the two thriving poppy plants growing almost right up against the pole.

When the power company guy came up to the house to tell me he was here, I told him that I'd already cleared most of the weeds.  He said that he'd seen this and that he wouldn't need to do much.  So I said a silent goodbye to the poppies and forgot about it.

Later, when I went out to the garden, this is what greeted me: everything bare and well-nuked... except for my poppies.  Other than a few scattered petals, they were as firmly and robustly planted as ever.

It's a little thing, but a happy sort of victory just the same.  Bless you for leaving them, nice man from the power company!

Poppy Time

The little dunce cap is actually a sepal

The first of the California poppies have begun opening.  They're common native wildflowers throughout the west coast, but not a one grew on our own hillsides. 

Every year I buy bags of seed and scatter them freely wherever the mood suits.  Most don't sprout -- I think that the competition from weeds and wild grasses is too great.  However, each spring I discover more areas where the poppies have managed to gain a foothold.  Orange is slowly spreading out amongst the green.

Louis

Today I told my 4th grade students about our new dog, christened Louis.  They loved the pictures of our newly rescued Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, but when I told them what I'd named him, the nine-year-old consensus was that this was a terrible name.  "Boring!" they  cried.  I explained to them about cavaliers, the kings of France and the nobility of the name "Louis."  This fell on deaf ears. Louis is so not a cool name -- when did this happen?  Well, by the very fact that "Louis" is so very uncool, I'm more smitten with it than ever.  And my plan is to watch my class fall in love with Louis the dog -- and then they will fall in love with his name.  That's how these things work!