Sing! It's Spring!

Happy Spring!

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My yard is starting to look so green and pretty again.

I absolutely adore looking out my kitchen window at the bright new baby green leaves on my drake elm tree that I planted a few years ago as a sapling, and now it is about 15 feet tall and my favorite tree in our yard....But oh how pretty! when it is beginning to be re-dressed in new green finery! I love it!

Oh, and I had begun to fear that my cottage garden had just faded away(of course there were a few plants remaining/perrenials like blanket flowers and so forth that are there...but....no! it is starting to make a come back after a long winter..and I have darling little "Northern Lights Snapdragons(baby snapdragons) popping up everywhere in the prettiest pastel colors....and I have some African Daisies(cape marigold/osteospermum) popping up in the cottage garden also! These little flowers are so very cheerful and so far mine are in a bright yellow color and a bright orange color! Very cheery flowers! I just found out that in my planting zone these little guys can be perrenials! woohoo! ..that means they'll come back year after year..oooh yay! What fun!

We call the cottage garden our "surprise garden" ...as we simply scattered lots and lots of various wildflower seeds all in a large area that we had cleared out/tilled in our yard and set a rock path through the middle of it with a couple ofbenches.. and just scattered wildflower seeds of all kinds about a year ago in winter time all over the cleaned out area...and now it is amazing to see what will "pop up" in the garden.

Can't wait to see all my "surprises" this year.

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We had alot of rain this afternoon late..but afterwards everything looked so fresh..and green. A beautiful late afternoon light bathed all the grass and trees. It looked real nice after all the rain.

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I spent a better part of the day getting my house ready for family to come visit for a few days.

Even "Mr. Collin had a bath..he was so funny..at first he acted like he wanted out of the water and started to give me a hard time, but then once I got him good and wet ..I'll be if that little stinker didn't just lay himself down in the warm water as if he was taking in a fine spa treatment..haha. Now he's all clean and smelling good, especially after I used his mango scented doggy spray and gave him a good brushing down. When he gets a bath he also has his own little toothbrush that I brush his teeth with. He doesn't seem to mind it at all.

Spoiled little guy.

Oh..and he's doing so very well with the "sit" command too.Of course the little begging strips in bacon flavor really help too..ha. He loves those things.

And he has learned to play fetch..and loves it! But he's a bit stubborn yet on giving up the ball, he likes to have a tight grip on it and not give it up. That will be next on the agenda..getting him to release it so that play time is alot easier.

Of course I have also been working on the "lay" command with him along with the "sit' command.

And then we'll start working on the "come" and "stay" commands next.

He's doing a good bit better on the not nipping/biting.

When he begins I immediately freeze up like a statue, and if he begins biting my feet/shoes I immediately pick him up and issue a verbal "no"... and tell him that play time will end if he does not stop.So far he is improving on this, but does have a way to go before we have this issue under control....but..all in all he's doing really well and is a darling puppy.

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Wanted to share a few Spring poems with you all to usher in the first day of Spring:
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Spring Cleaning

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March bustles in on windy feet

And sweeps my doorstep and my street.

She washes and cleans with pounding rains,

Scrubbing the earth of winter stains.

She shakes the grime from carpet green

Till naught but fresh new blades are seen.

Then, house in order, all neat as a pin,

She ushers gentle springtime in.

Author: Susan Reiner

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Spring, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant king;
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing.
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

Thomas Nashe (1567–1601)Summer's Last Will and Testament (1600)

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"Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath lost

Her snow-white robes,and now no more the frost

Candies the grass, or casts an icy cream

Upon the silver lake or crystal stream;

But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth,

And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth

To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree

The drowsy cuckoo and the humble-bee.

Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring

In triumph to the world the youthful spring."-

Thomas Carew, The Spring, 1630

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"Spring shows what God can do with a drab and dirty world." - Virgil A. Kraft

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"In the glow of the dawn,

Welcome a new day,

Greet the golden sunlight or rain,

Nature in all its subtlety.

Whip of the wind,

Earth unfolds,

Softly falling rain,

Growing plants and buds blossoming.

Visions of the earth, with glories of nature,

Beauty of the daffodils,

Sunshine and rain from a rainbow,

Awe! Nature in full bloom."

- Blanche Black, Springtime

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"We do not ask what useful purpose the birds do sing, for song is their pleasure since they were created for singing. Similarly, we ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the heavens... The diversity of the phenomena of Nature is so great, and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich, precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment."- Johannes Kepler, Mysterium Cosmographicum

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"All that is sweet, delightful, and amiable in this world, in the serenity of the air, the fineness of seasons, the joy of light, the melody of sounds, the beauty of colors, the fragrance of smells, the splendor our precious stones, is nothing else but Heaven breaking through the veil of this world, manifesting itself in such a degree and darting forth in such variety so much of its own nature."

- William Law

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"The year's at spring

And day's at the morn;

Morning's at seven;

The hill sides's dew-pearled;

The lark's on the wing;

The snail's on the thorn;

God's in his heaven -

All's right with the world!"

- Robert Browning, The Year's at the Spring, 1870

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"For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land."

- Song of Solomon

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Enjoy all the lovely poems.

May you all have a lovely day!

~The Garden Goose~