Compost, cherry blossoms, forget-me-nots...and bones

After our day away yesterday, we felt like we had to hit the grounding running this morning.  Our first task this morning, however, was doing tech support to help Leann's sister get some pictures on her Caring Bridge site.  It's tricky to try to help someone over the phone without being able to see their screen...frustration on both ends of the phone call.  But we got it done!  Starting a Caring Bridge site has been so great for Kristi as she deals with her cancer, and chemo, and all of the stresses that go with that.  It's been a great way to keep her friends and relatives up on what's going on with her.  If you know Kristi or would like to wish her well on her site, please email me and I'll get you the info you need.

So back to the yard work and gardening.  Leann used some composite boards she got from her other sister and made this second compost bin.

Now we can start moving compost from the old one to the new, revealing the "black gold" in the bottom of the old one.  We hope...

Next, we made a trip through the orchard where we saw the trees had tiny beginnings of leaves, with blossoms soon to break through.  And then we saw this...

...the first cherry blossoms.  If you looked at all the buds that will soon open up, you'd think that tree would eventually be LOADED with cherries.  Somehow it never works that way, though.  It would be great if we could keep the temps up above freezing from here on out.  If the blossoms freeze, then no fruit, which was what happened to all our apples and cherries two years ago.  

A couple weeks ago I mentioned in a post that the forget-me-nots would be coming up in our ravine soon.  Well, soon is now and there are blue forget-me-nots all over.  

Unfortunately, they are so little that they don't show up in pictures very well.  I love all the shades of green!

Forget-me-nots and dandelions - that's spring to me!  After the dandelions turn into the stems with seed fluff, I'm not as interested in them!

Hidden in all this long grass and forget-me-nots are some of the rocks that form the outline of the labyrinth we made last fall.  I was going to try mowing the labyrinth for the first time--it's going to be tricky, I'm afraid--but I was reminded that we can't mow the forget-me-nots!  

And finally, the bones.  I looked down and saw this -- part of the jawbone of a deer.  You just have to wonder how things like that show up without the rest of the bones.  And not far from this is the feather evidence of a couple of turkeys.  Hard winter!