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I love pink, and I love gerbera daisies! I picked out three shades of pink gerberas and planted them right in front of the house so I can see them first thing every day. As is pretty standard in my life, I notice things tend to have the shape of a heart in them. Can you see the heart shape in this photograph?

I’m hoping to get around to all of the 13’ers who visited me yesterday, so if I haven’t seen you yet – I’ll see you soon!

Get your head out of the gutter. (Now scroll down.) :meow:

House Finch
Blue Jay #1, Collecting peanuts

Blue Jay #2, Waiting for more peanuts

Red Bellied Woodpecker #2, eating plain old variety bird seed

How passionate am I about our birds? Well, I was so excited to see the Red Bellied Woodpecker come back that I think I started to pee my pants. I didn’t want to put my camera down to go to the bathroom! Seriously. He is one impressive bird. Look at that beak! (Yes, I know, the better to peck holes with, m’dear!)

We also did some landscaping today, baby steps through the summer to get the house ready for market. Yardwork did wonders for my anxiety level today.

I’ll plant a few more things tomorrow morning and get back to work on building that harp.

We met Kiki today on a farm. We stopped so that I could photograph a horse for a portrait , but he was gone to show. We’ll have to go back for that photograph. Kiki followed us into the barn and she must have known that we’re allergic to cats, because she decided to rub her pretty furry self all over our legs. I knew just by looking at her that she’s with kitten, which made her “awww” factor just skyrocket. We were flattered when she decided she was going to come home with us, and followed us to the car. No kidding, she was determined.

Look at her, about to jump right up on Caty’s lap, and send us directly to the nearest emergency room for a nice epi cocktail. Sorry Kiki, achoo to you. I wish. :sniffle: :honnnnnnnnnnnk:

We also met a 1 week old colt with the curliest little mane I’ve ever seen – and a mama that was highly protective of her newborn. The daddy was a doll, he and I snuggled and he gave me kisses and snorted warm air in my ear (and down my neck) – I think I’m in love. I didn’t even sneeze! Yahoo!

On your mark, get set, raspberries!!!
(I apologize for the intrusive watermarks, there have been some people using my images lately who are violating my ToU by altering them, cropping out my copyright. Some people sure do spoil it for everyone.)

I get all excited when the flowers start comin’ up, I forget what they are (it’s been so long!) so I just start throwing names at them. My poor Dwarf Irises were deemed Crocus for a few days, until the Crocus showed up.

So, these are Crocus. A little bling-bling for your spring-spring today!

Also, we had another visitor who was most striking. I took a couple hundred photographs of her yesterday while sitting out in the studio. I’m so easily distracted! Show me a new bird and I’ll drop my paintbrushes in a nanosecond and be clicking away with the camera.

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We spent the entire day outside yesterday, enjoying 70-degree weather, getting a 5 hour upper body workout (raking and weeding for 5 hours burns 2,082 calories, don’tchyaknow?) making our yard purdiful for spring. We’ll be planting more wildflower seed, some watermelon and pumpkin, some forever pink hydrangea, heuchera, blazing star, monarda and penstemon for our hummingbirds.

I photographed this house finch (not to be confused with a purple finch, which looks pretty much identical, so it’s beyond me if I’ve identified him correctly or not), he and his striped ladyfriend were feeding on the thistle socks. (Yes I put the feeders back up when I saw the goldfinch, I couldn’t stop myself!) I had so many good shots of this guy it was hard to pick one, so I let the monkey do it.

(Yes, I’ll be painting both of ’em, I think!)

We made some steak fajitas (easy recipe forthcoming), some nachos, and we invited Ben & Jerry over after dinner. It was a nice spring day, I can’t wait for more of them!

We’ll spend a good chunk of the day outside again today. It’s cooler, of course, and I hear it’s supposed to snow tomorrow. I’ll be taking advantage of the mini-spring (tease) as long as it sticks around.

How’s the weather by you? Got a few spare bedrooms, say, four of ’em? Or a spare house to rent out?

If you have the right temp, we just may show up at your place.

The crocus dwarf irises are bloomin’! The crocus dwarf irises are bloomin’!

(Doh moment, calling them crocus)

On top of this fabulous purple growth in my front yard, did I mention I spied, with my little four-eyes, a robin last Friday? Here in the Midwest, that’s indicative of only one thing:

S P R I N G !Okay, the snow can go away now. Shoo. Buh-bye… I’m packing the shovels alllll the way up front in the moving van, I tell ya.

You know spring is coming around our house when the black squirrels are hanging from the suet feeders.

You know it’s spring when you tap on the window to startle them, and all he does is stop for a moment to see where the noise came from. You know it’s spring when you have to open the window and threaten his little fuzzy life before he’ll leave the suet alone. (for 10 minutes. Seriously. Why do I bother?)

You also know it’s spring around our house when there are new birdies hanging around, new as in other than goldfinch, house sparrows, house finches, cardinals, chickadees, hummingbirds and nuthatches.

This is a Dark Eyed Junco, I identified him through eNature. He and his pretty little girlfriend have been hanging out here for a few days now, and I couldn’t be more happy to host them. They’re really cute! I’m waiting for the really unique ones to stop by, like that smores lookin’ bird I saw last year, the Eastern Towhee. Oh come on, doesn’t he make you hungry for a nice big chocolately marshmallowey smore? Me too. Or I suppose it could be that I’ve just been eating plain brown rice for too long.

One more, just for giggles:

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