Spring Planting Time!

One of my very favorite parts of Springtime is that first day that's warm, sunny and the perfect day to clean up the yard and plant some new shrubs, flowers or herbs!   Means this property has been a work in progress, we're still working on making the outside shine as good as it can.  When we moved in here, it was end of summer, so really last spring/summer was our first season in the house and with so many other things going on, like the pool- we hardly had the time to invest in yard work.  This year,  my goal is to trim some more trees, take some more trees OUT, and plant some new shrubs, perennials and (hopefully) start my garden.

A trip to Produce Junction today set me back a few hundred bucks, but totally worth it considering all I got.  Kayla joined me and helped pick out some new plants for the front of the house and around the new stone retaining wall we built this past March. She and I each had our own cart, and we literally filled up, paid and unloaded in the car 3 TIMES!  The back seat of my car was folded down, and I STILL loaded up on goodies from there.  God, I love that place!!!   Here's some of what I picked up.. now deciding how to lay all this shit out will be another episode.

Ducklings Coming Soon!

So June has been sitting in the duck house, on her nest for a few weeks now.  She is definitely brooding and we have been so uncertain on wether or not we'll even get babies because of the cold spring we've had and how long it took her to drop them all (7 weeks).  Being new to this whole experience it's been so stressful.  Of course Tim wanted to snatch the eggs up and gobble em up, but Kayla and I voted we let nature run it's course and see what happens with them.

Yesterday I couldn't stand the wait any longer, I just had to candle an egg to see if anything was happening- AND IT IS!!!  Much to my surprise, the very first egg (of many) in June's nest was a growing baby duckie!!!  My heart skipped a beat and I literally let out a squeal the neighbors could hear. Kayla came running over and had to see for herself.  She snapped these pictures with her phone. It's a little difficult to see really well, but you can certainly see the veining and air pockets along with the dark shape of a new little duckling to be!  

Can't wait to see how many we end up getting and what they'll all look like.  We're honestly not even sure if they're all June's eggs, Maggie being a female may have dropped some so it's going to be exciting to see who the ducklings will end up looking like. Hopefully in just another week or so... with all the excitement, I grabbed a second egg and we went to the garage where it was a little easier to see and candle.  These were the other pictures we got.