Hi there, it's been nearly a month since the last update to our journal. But it's been a very good month.

This week, spring appeared in the yard. As soon as snow receeded and revealed part of one garden, the tulips sprang up on that one small bare patch to get going for the summer! Rummaging around in the mulch we found strong shoots coming up from the bleeding hearts along our Arctic entry, delphinium breaking the surface along the back fence, forget-me-nots just roaring to life against the shed, and numerous, generally unsatisfactory unidentified plants emerging from some of those unusual bulbs we planted over the past few years with great hopes. The collection of perrenials and trees which were never planted last summer, still in pots, are starting to reappear where our friends helped us dig them late last fall.

Moose have more or less destroyed both mountain ash trees in the backyard; the one girdled last year finally broke off about 10 feet above the ground, and the shorter, stunted tree got a major chewing. The apple got pretty well chewed up as well, so we don't expect flowers to reappear. One Helen Blanc rose in the backyard was moose trimmed but not too badly.. we hadn't realized it was a target too!

Our seeds are going strong under lights in the front basement window, and most of the yard is now snow-free. We'll have to do some major raking and thatching this year, as Junior's arrival in October put the kibosh on the final lawn raking last Autumn. And while Daddy cleaned up after doggie a few times this winter, there's quite a collection waiting for him to clean out tomorrow evening. Yummy.

Some tulip bulbs which we hadn't planted last fall made it through the winter, and we just planted them out all over the yard to add some more early color. Surprisingly, it's tulips - not crocus or daffodils - that are the earliest flowers in our gardens. Crocus and daffodil just never have flowers. Hopefully, we can find a source for trout lilly and painted trillium this Spring and plant some for early color in the future. Those are great, small woodland plants and we have just the shady spots for them.

I'm not going to report on baby Noah - I'll try and have Donna do that tomorrow. Since it's been a whole month, it will take some thought to recall what happened when and all that. At any rate he's happy, he loves to sit up and play, a second tooth is coming in, and he seems to enjoy riding in his new pack with Mommy or Daddy and the mutt on these wonderful, sunny warm spring days.

Mike