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Skies are blue and the grass is high – it must be summertime.

Jen inspected our nano-orchard, which appears poised to produce as many as four apples this season.

Rather than rely on our domestic fruit production, she set out to pick wild black raspberries.

The brambles provided, ensuring we will have jam this summer.

It’s high season for peonies [ed. note: or at least it was before this post spent two weeks in the draft folder]. Here’s a Bowl of Plenty blooming in Jen’s secret garden.

Once again we invited ourselves to the Kaimal/Lawson’s to watch Rhinebeck’s classic — perhaps even trapped-in-amber — Memorial Day Parade.

Lew and Rinda visited for the holiday weekend. Erica and Geoff came up Sunday but were touring houses during the parade. And Sarah was working at the barn.

Each year William Sanchez, the town judge who married us in 2000, gets a year older. Fortunately we do not.

Also defying age is Del Wolcott, 95, seen this weekend driving his tractor.

Here’s a before-and-after look at our back yard from the PondCam. I’m glad no one was using the tree swing!

This is after the after picture. Sigh.

Sarah’s horse for the summer, Sully (formally known as Lanchello), a Dutch gelding, arrived at Southlands Friday morning after an overnight drive from Georgia.

By Saturday, Sully had acclimated enough to be ridden. He seems like a fine fellow.

In unrelated news, Jen’s secret garden has awakened for spring, with blooms including this fancy Blue Columbine.

Jen continues to find opportunities to use the scythe.

Jen enjoyed her customary Mother’s Day breakfast in bed, including an asparagus and wild scallion omelet (also known as the Lawn & Garden omelet).

Of course, having Sarah back home is the best gift of all.

This handsome Baltimore Oriole stopped by to inspect our new copper beech tree this afternoon.

Presumably having found things satisfactory, it flew over to look in on one of our new sugar maples. The trees seem to be growing and healthy.

The first day of spring is not March 20, it’s the day Jen harvests enough asparagus and forages enough morels to make fettuccini with morels, asparagus and parmesan (and a little garlic). This year, that day was May 7, and I would be surprised if any among the multitudes reading this had a better Sunday dinner.

Our cultivated fruit production over the years has been modest, consisting mostly of peaches from the two trees we gave Jen for Mother’s Day in 2012, one of which gave up the ghost a couple of years ago. The two Macoun apple trees we planted have never produced any apples because they are the same species, and therefore will not pollinate. Some things take years to learn. In any event, we have expanded our tiny orchard this year to include some different varieties of apples, a couple of pear trees, and another two peach trees, including a donut peach, a favorite of Sarah’s.

Daisy waits patiently whenever anyone ventures beyond the perimeter of her electric fence, which hasn’t been working for several months.

Not every husband would have the thoughtfulness, foresight, and — let’s face it — courage to get his wife a scythe for Christmas.

Jen, lucky, tried out her scythe this afternoon. After watching a few instructional videos on YouTube, she cleared phragmites from our volunteer willow next to the pond.

Daisy looked on in amazement.