stuff is growing!

I was happy to see when carefully uncovered of their winter leaf mulch that the onions survived and are sprouting. The trees in the front yard have bright crocuses coming up around their base (previous owners must have planted those bulbs, I put in bluebells last fall but don't know when they'll sprout) and the tulips are coming up strong. One lone purple crocus came up on the side of the house that was full of purslane last year; I'm going to plant a row of marigolds there soon.

It was so nice to work outside. The day mild, warm, cloudy heading on to rain later this afternoon. Raked up the entire back lawn for the first time- lots of my winter leaf mulch blew all about and it was messy. Looks so much better now! (This fall will bag up all the leaves and use leaf mold or partly finished compost for mulch, it will stay put better) The turned-over pile completely filled up the new bin (even with the bottom part removed), so after topping it off with some pulled weeds mixed with the last three months' worth of kitchen veg scraps (sealed in buckets) and half the dead leaves/grass raked off the lawn, I put the rest of the leaves/grass into the empty buckets. I still plan on keeping a veg scrap bucket in the house, so the material is partly decayed by the time it gets out to the pile, and hopefully won't attract rats. Maybe instead of getting more sand I'll layer it with the leaves/grass off the lawn, to smother and add brown material.

Lots of birds around. Today I saw robins, a bright cardinal, a flashy magpie, dozen juncos, and a pair of woodpeckers. They're all very busy, and Irwin intent on stalking them.