In The Garden

Damn this Poem A Day Challenge, it's kept me in the house for far too long.  So, I spent this morning in the yard, and going right back out there while I can. I've been watering everything; the back is done but I need to get out into the front before the winds start blowing.  We are under a wind advisory for the afternoon, and it is supposed to be almost eighty. Not weather to encourage shy young sprouts. The redbud tree is starting to blossom, and the irises we freeloaded when a neighbor thinned hers out two years ago are finally going to bloom.  I think there are things that didn't make it through the winter, but I'm waiting a while longer to be sure. I don't know if it's too cold here for the salvia leucantha, but none of them seem to be showing signs of life.

I was surprised when we moved out here in spring of 2006 to see the profusion of lilacs blooming everywhere in ABQ and Santa Fe.  There was one small and stunted lilac in our backyard, which has only had a few blooms in the intervening years.  This year it is entirely covered with buds, covered, I tell you, and it, along with the irises, is giving me a reason to live a while longer. Okay, and also I saw my first tiger swallowtail in the front yard yesterday afternoon.  Black-chinned hummers have been sighted in the Bosque, so I have to look out my feeders, get some filled and hung on the patio.  Too busy to go to work, it looks like - spring has sprung.