Spring... is springing up....

We had a slight cold blast a few nights ago but since then the Spring gods have decided that winter had been here long enough. Bunches of bluebonnets are sprouting up all over the fields, and some are even blooming already down at the corner of our property. There are always some early-birds among the bluebonnets every year who insist on popping up weeks before all the others.

Speaking of birds... the baby birds (now adults) are now back in the nests on the porch. They've been renovating them a bit, making them wider and larger, and some are so deep that I can hear the birds climbing up to the edge before they sit on the rim and look around the porch before flying off into the fields. The nests of those barn swallows aren't the prettiest decorations for the porch, but the birds seem happy there, and they're safe from the winds and the weather because the nests are tucked up along the porch columns and protected by the roof. Only one of the ten nests has fallen down to the porch, and it looked like it wasn't constructed very well in the first place. It's amazing to me how those tiny birds can build those structures... dirt and mud and water and they all look like little brown igloos turned upside-down.

I haven't seen any skunks or raccoons lately, not even an armadillo or a fox... makes me wonder if they've gone elsewhere now because Savannah's scent must be all over the yard and the porch, and I don't think those critters want to mess around with a dog of Savannah's size.

One of the ladies who come for tea every week was telling us that she was able to "lease a bull" in order to "service" her cows.  I had no idea that such a thing was even possible. The bull was allowed to roam on her property for a week, with full access to all of her cows. She's hoping that the result will be a new herd of calves before too long. When we asked her if it was difficult for the bull's owner to round him up and get him back into the trailer to be brought home, she said that the bull seemed to be happy to leave... "He was very tired," she told us.

We have been here in the Hills for nearly seven years now... and life in the country is still a lesson every day.