RhinebeckFarm.com

The peonies are in high bloom.

And the cicadas are out in force, acting like seventeen year-olds.

We had a great Memorial Day weekend.  On Friday, before heading up for the farm, we visited our prospective puppy Daisy and her litter-mates (and mother and grandmother) in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey.  We’re only about two weeks away from dog ownership, and Sarah could not be more excited.

This morning, Sarah marched in the Memorial Day parade in beautiful downtown Rhinebeck.

Jen’s parents visited for the weekend.

But perhaps you’re here for the bird photos?

Here is one we’d not seen before: a rose-breasted grosbeak.

And here is our old friend, the bluebird.

After lunch today we walked down to the swamp to look in on the herons.

Back at the pond, this mallard seems very recently to have hatched seven ducklings.  Sarah was in aww.

One of Jen’s peonies bloomed to herald Mothers Day.

We started the day in traditional style, with breakfast in bed: broccoli and cheddar omelet, locally sourced bacon, fruit, toast, and coffee.  Sarah made duct tape roses, and a pinwheel for the garden.

On Saturday after soccer practice, Sarah and I stopped by the Phantom Gardener for some Mothers Day gifts: left to right, a blue butterfly bush, a pink dogwood tree, and a lilac.

Sunday afternoon, while Jen gardened, I looked in on our large population of herons.  I counted seven, each in a different nest.

Here’s an oriole.  We hear them frequently but they’re hard to spot.

I think this is some kind of sparrow?  Please feel free to identify it in the comments.

We saw this coyote on Saturday and Sunday, drinking at the pond.  She seems to have some pups somewhere – maybe in the hedgerow.  We are giving each other a wide berth.

On Saturday our neighbor Richard Murray lent me his Gravely zero-turn mower, which has a 27 horsepower engine and a 60″ deck.  It’s like a go-kart with a whirring blade.  I had great fun with it, and even (completely intentionally) carved this monogram into the path to the pond.

The crystal-clear weather continued on Sunday.  Sarah and I took the kayak out for a spin on the pond, Jen organized her gardens, and this hawk looked for lunch.

The columbine is starting to bloom.

It is unmistakably springtime.  The barn swallows have returned.

The daffodils are blooming.

The tulips — at least those few that are regularly Bobexed, to avoid the predations of the deer — are blooming.

And even our peach trees are blooming.  They were Jen’s Mothers’ Day present last year.

On Sunday we had such spectacular weather that even Sarah did not object strenuously to a walk.  We found these white dryas in the woods.

Here’s the team returning home.  If you expand the picture, you might be able to see the tulip shown above, to the right of the bright red rake at the bottom of the stairs.  It occupies only a pixel or so.

In non-floral news, Sarah has more or less mastered the cartwheel.

Sarah dug her golf clubs out of the back of the hall closet and drove a few balls into the pasture.

Springtime brings Ring-necked Ducks to the pond.  This year we have an odd menage of three males and a female.

On Saturday, Jen and I took a walk and counted nine herons’ nests in the swamp.  Only two of them were occupied, but somebody had to build them.  The herons seem to be thriving.

Here is the proud father of Sarah’s new puppy, who was born (with her seven siblings) on April 6, 2013.  She will join us in June.

Here’s a tired-looking mom with her puppies.

We have been conducting a low-level war with the Canada Geese as long as we’ve been at the farm.  They are pestilent, and persistent.  But I too am persistent: whenever we see geese, we run across the lawn at them, screaming, and then get in the rowboat to chase them off the pond.  Our neighbors think we are quite insane.  However, vigilence in the spring has meant that, for the most part, the geese give up by June.

And here is a woman and her tractor, returning from the garden.

Sarah dusted off her bicycle for the first ride of the season.

Here is one of our resident turkeys.  Soon we should have lots of poults (that is farm talk for baby turkeys).

On Sunday, Sarah went for a trail ride in Walden N.Y. with her friend Michaela (not pictured).

We returned from a long absence (okay, two weekends) to find many signs of spring.

At school, Sarah just finished a segment called “Wild Northeast,” in which each student selected a northeastern animal or plant (only two kids picked plants) and wrote a little book about it.  Sarah chose the Northern Spring Peeper (seen here and here).  She was a bit ambivalent about the return of this blue heron, who comes to the pond to eat — you guessed it, Northern Spring Peepers.

Another sure sign of spring is the return of the Canada Geese.  I chased them out of the pond on Saturday and Sunday.  There were also scaups and a pair of mallards.

We did a little spring cleaning on Saturday, clearing out the flower beds.

Sarah was up early on Sunday to see what was in her Easter basket.

Later, we hosted an egg hunt.