It's May!

And it finally looks, smells, sounds & acts like spring has actually arrived.

To stay that is.

We've had quite a few teasers, whispers of spring; the fickle thing it is in this part of the country.  (And quite a few other area's too, from what I've heard & seen evidence of)

We had very little snow this year, and not much "real" cold either.  In fact we didn't even get any snow here until Feb.  Once it got going tho, we had some every little bit right up to our last snow on May 1.
Nothing exciting tho, you know when it starts snowing, blowing, drifting and you can't get out of your drive way or you have to keep your snow shovel right beside your door so you can grab it to make a path-IF you can get the door pushed open far enough.  Like in the "good 'ol days"  HA.

No, all our snows were half hearted attempts that fizzled out almost as soon as they got a start.  The ground was barely covered, the tops of the grass, weeds & mowed off corn stocks sticking out.  That is until the last of April when we were done with the whole disgusting chilly, blah, black & gray landscape & thoroughly ready for some weather to match our idea of what we think spring SHOULD be, then we got about 6 inches of the wintery stuff.
Now mind you, I'm not (nor I'm sure anyone else in this area) complaining about the moisture, as it was greatly needed & appreciated, but at that point we all would have loved to see it come down in a more liquid form rather than the white flakes. The best thing I can say about it all is that it didn't stay around very long, our temps were high enough to melt it off in a couple days.

It's been a long drawn out winter, regardless that the calendar was marked spring back in March. I was ready for sunshine, blue skies, leaves on the trees & green grass. Six months of "winter" is just too long!

We planted grass.  It's going to be a challenge, nothing has been done with the yard for (??) years.  We have garden space tilled up, a beautiful waiting bed generously sprinkled with a donation from our back yard feed lot for the veggies I'm hoping will grow.  Gardening is a challenge for me, I have a love hate relationship with it.  I love the idea, like planting, love the produce & canning/freezing, but I get burned out in the middle of the summer when it's hot, and I dislike the maintenance of it. Some years are better than others.
The upside of it is when I don't get something picked or put up when I should, the chickens benefit, and I don't feel near as guilty feeding it to them!
We have baby kittens, 4 of them.  Our 3 adult cats are happy & flourishing.  The chickens that freely roamed all winter are now fenced to protect our garden.

I love May.  It's jam packed full of special dates for our family.
My sisters birthday.
A niece, two nephews.
Our (4th) daughters Anniversary
Mothers day.
Our oldest son's, our 3rd daughter & our "love in the middle" girl. #6.
Can you believe that out of 14 grandchildren & one on the way, we have none born in May.  That's o.k......  (smile!)

 Earlier this year I actually spent quite a bit of time scrapbooking. I did a first three years album for our middle son. We did lots of little projects on the house, I need to get my page updated again.  There's lots more on the "to do" list.

In the mean time I'm loving seeing spring for the first time in this part of the state & looking forward to a new grandbaby in a few weeks.

 Evidence of spring even thru the snow

 Our cats sunning on the porch. Even tho the trees have no leaves, our bush is nicely leafed out.

 All we have to do is step out the door & the cats are right beside us.  The gray one is our mama cat.

 The fields are green!

 The newly planted lawn

 Loving the sight of blue sky, planted fields & the feel of *WARM*
We had a sudden rain shower come thru this afternoon and it was wonderful. It's sandy soil out here tho, and you'd never know this picture was taken minutes after it quit.  The rain soaks in very quickly.

Inch by inch, they're coming up.  An iris bed that has survived.  I'd love to do something fun with the old stump by the mail box too.

--That sums it up for this time.