Time to bundle up again. The rains satisfied all my plants and then some. (The weeds, too, are wild with joy.) The heat wave moved elsewhere, cool air settled in. Time for the sweatpants and hoodie once more.
And we need warm wraps for the morning walk. Ed joins me today. We kept the chicks in the coop overnight. We'll be setting them free once again so that they can live their free range lives. Last week, we had let them out and the cats the cats looked like they might pounce on them so we locked the chicks up again. The hope is that the they grew enough since then so that the cats will have second thoughts. There seems to be a magic line out there and once they cross it, they become chickens rather than birds in the eyes of the six cats that live here. You may chase birds, but they don't mess with chickens.
And indeed, there is a passing feline interest in the three young girls, but nothing more than that.
The chicks accept the cats without worry and the cats keep their distance (chasing each other up ladders and trees and leaving the chicks to their free ranging bliss).
That is not the only worry, of course. The three newbies don't yet know to be afraid of certain predators. They also don't seem to know that there is safety in numbers. The big hens and Happy go one way, the three little ones go off in a different direction.
So how will they manage to return to the coop tonight? Well that's a good question! Right now they seem pretty clueless about everything. Let's hope that by evening they'll pick up some understanding of the lay of the land. [Spoiler: we will corner them and chase them inside the coop.]
In the meantime, the clouds stay put and the hoodie stays zipped and I have little desire to spend all the morning hours outside. (There's plenty of mom paperwork to keep me busy indoors.) Breakfast inside, obviously.
I do have some leftover prairie perennials that still need to be planted and I have about two dozen more plants arriving later in the week. But that's all peanuts. A handful gets put in today, but the heavy load of spring planting is behind me. As of this day, I have 214 new perennials, in the ground!
What's blooming right now? Oh, the crab apple of course...
But, too, the lilac is just about ready to begin its week of fragrant glory.
Afternoon is Snowdrop pick up time.
I wish I could offer her warm sunshine and playtime outside. It's just not that kind of a day. But we cover the outdoor essentials: she wants to check if the little chicks are in the coop.
And I want to show her the blooming (out of control as usual) lilies of the valley. I love these flowers, though keeping them out of the flower beds is a challenge!
And she wants to climb her tree, which right now is nothing short of enchanting.
And then we speed inside, where it's cozy and warm and more importantly -- there are mango slices and strawberries and cheddar bunnies to snack on.
Evening: there are breaks in the clouds. We'll have hoodie weather on and off this week. And that's just fine. May is always beautiful. Cold, warm, dry, wet -- we get all of it this month and it's all just magnificent.
