Cheerleading for Spring

It is trying quite hard to be spring here in the great Northeast. However, it just can’t seem to make it over the seasonal hump. The daffodils are almost open, but not quite. Cows are almost shed out of their winter fur, but not slick yet. They are still spewing clouds of hairs into the air (and onto our clothing) all day long. Heifers haven’t even begun to lose their wooly covering yet, and are as shaggy as bears.

The gold fish are beginning to forage in the garden pond. Soon I will be able to set up the filter and the fountain and get rid of the slimy strings of algae that are slithering all through the normally clean water.
But not yet; it’s too cold.

I watch every day for the first green frog and listen at dusk for the peepers. Not yet, too cold.

The grass is showing tinges of green in the soft corners (especially on the lawn, where no one would get mad if it waited a bit). Soon there will be enough to turn the stock out into the pastures and stop paying through the nose (and other important bodily orifices) for corn silage to feed them and hay to buffer their rumens. However, turn out time is not quite here yet.

The ground is almost warm and dry enough to start working, but we face north so it is too cold and wet to start turning dirt yet. The boss had a go last week with the chisels and just missed getting stuck. Gotta wait I guess.

However, the maple trees are in full bloom, driving Liz into the depths of allergic-to-them misery. It is not good to be allergic to maple blossoms in upstate New York. Or at least not in April.

The buggy critters sure are waking up. Every day another hornet somehow finds its way into the bathroom and buzzes around on the floor. I hate to be cruel so I give them a ride down the "zoom flume" in our personal water park. What a way to go!

Anyhow, I am ready for the whirlwind insanity that is spring on a dairy farm. Bring on the sun, bring on the grass, warm up the earth, I am ready to garden. Call up the alfalfa, plug in the corn seeds. Come on Spring, rah, rah, ree.