So turns out many of the plants in the garden that we thought were dead are coming back after the snowstorm. (I’ve said this before, I know). And MUCH has in fact benefitted from the snow- especially the things coming up from seed.

We have wheat that popped up randomly in the yard that is now ready for harvest?

There are marigolds popping up everywhere?

There are dahlberg daisy seedlings in the brick patio?

The stratification process (exposure to freezing temps while in dormant seed form) made just about every seed germinate around here… except for the larkspur and poppies. After such a show last year there are NO larkspur and only one poppy in the backyard. Bummer.

I’m letting the marigolds grow up and the dahlberg daisies on the patio get carefully walked around. The yard won’t get mowed till we harvest the wheat… and boy-howdy is that a sentence I never thought I’d type!

We are still missing some of the BIG losses back there: my upright hardy cactus, the senna tree, the cotoneaster, the white cat whiskers shrub, the brugmansia I’d grown into an 8′ tall plant from a 4″ square pot… that would have bloomed THIS year if it had lived! I’ll never know what color it was going to be! ARGH! Also gone are the second morning glory bush, the maroon salvia, and all but one of our yews. Thought yews were hardier than that!

But! My point (as I rattle off the list of losses) is that all was NOT, in fact, lost! It is still spring back there! There are flowers and green things and butterflies and hummingbirds!

We can’t bring ourselves to take out the dead 7′ senna tree… just in case it comes back later in the year from the roots. But if it doesn’t, I’ve planted some red morning glory seeds at it’s base for the vines to use it’s dead skeleton as a trellis, at least for this year. It’s a smidge as morbid as if someone made my bones into wind chimes after I’m dead, honestly.

And our beloved Castroville basil died… but my husband reminded me we had collected seeds last fall that I had forgotten about! We now have about 50 seedlings because the germination rate was Spectacular! Hope proves itself, yet again, to spring eternal.

And the wild and domestic animals are thriving as well. As mentioned previously, the night herons are now well on their way to hatching their brood (incubation is 21-25 days, google tells me… so any day now seems like). The chickens are laying up a storm (Cheerio has gone broody and is belligerent about trying to hatch her eggs), and the squirrels are driving us CRAZY in the attic- an annual annoyance.

Lacy and Alabama BOTH have gone to the vet for allergy shots as they’re licking themselves bald in patches. (you can see one on Alabama’s shoulder in the picture above) I have never, in 40 years of having cats, had cats do this? Is it the pollen from the red oak in our front yard? The hell? Hopefully this will pass when the pollen does because 2 of the 3 cats look like scuffed shoes and I’m ready for them to clean up their dang acts and visibly show the care, attention, and seemingly endless amounts of money we put into the jerks.

Continuing the Wild Kingdom theme in the backyard- though I’m pretty positive no one believes me when I say this- I looked up from my desk recently and there was a ROADRUNNER on the back fence! It went along the top of the fence, jumped onto the neighbors shed and then was gone. Good thing I have photo proof!

In other news: on April 17th it was our 17th anniversary!

We agreed no expensive gifts this year.

We had a fantastic day to add to the fantastic 22 years we’ve been together. The years fly by when you marry your very favorite person in the world, lemme tell ya.

And then finally, in other, other news. I am still periodically painting my nails. This week I decided to branch out from my normal, verging on goth-dark nails, and picked a kinda milky, yellow color. That’d be springlike! And still unique without trying too hard, right?