RhinebeckFarm.com

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.

We had enough snow on the ground so that Sarah could try out her snowshoes, which were a Christmas present last year.

She and her mom made a snowman.

While they were doing that, I found this horseshoe sticking out of the ground.  It looks very old.

Here’s the completed snowman, with a jaunty birds’ nest hat.

We had clammy weather at the farm this weekend.

Sarah stayed indoors and made origami frogs.

As you can see, we had an extremely busy Presidents’ Day weekend at the farm.

On Sunday night, Sarah had a sleepover at her friend Sophie’s house.  Jen and I made pizza and watched a movie (Argo).

I have re-thought my pizza recipe, both sauce and dough.  You can find details at the recipe page.