Spring

Lilacs. The air is scented with lilacs . And fresh mown grass. Plenty of that, if you have a country size garden, by the time you get to the end of mowing, it's time to begin over again.
Trees that were bare brushes three weeks ago, are now competing in greenness.
Outside our bedroom window, in the shrubs along the fence, sparrows conduct planning sessions at 4.40 am. Where they will go for breakfast, whether they expect rain. I listen to their hurried business and return to sleep when they set off. Later, when they see me in the kitchen, they make a point of  flying to the empty bird feeder. Just to remind me.
Our kitchen window is the set for Minuscule. Without the snails. But the ladybugs, the ants, all behave as if they have come here for summer for years. A bee follows us into the house, a rare honey bee. Plenty of fat Bumbles, but I capture the honey bee & send her off to the flowers. The bumbles have moved elsewhere in the garden now that the cherry bush has lost its flowers & come into full leaf. I continue to be in awe of the speed of nature here. From bare branches to full leaf in four weeks.

We move a bit more slowly. Not all the tasks will be finished. I am learning to be rather than to do.
Michael & I take off for wild excursions.

From this

to this in 4 weeks. The maples in leaf, the peach tree in leaf, hostas, iris & day lilies nearly ready to  bloom

A morning walk

I went for a walk along County route 61 at about 7 this morning. Imagine this was your ride to work or school?

Shushan Bulletin 6 May 2014

The flights were pretty good. We had a seat spare between us, so we were not too cramped, Sydney to LA. LA to JFK we were able to have 3 seats each! LA was the place to queue to queue. There are 3 queues when one comes into USA this route. One for Immigration, one for luggage, one for Customs, then one to put your luggage back on the flight, then one for security to be on the same plane as your luggage, (you hope). Oh, that is five queues.

But by the time we got to our hotel in NYC that night, I was seriously shattered. But had a good night’s sleep before heading up the Hudson on my favourite train journey, Penn Station to Saratoga Springs.

Got to our place in daylight and it looked like this:

Officially it is Spring, but it has been a long cold hard winter here, everyone speaks of it,  & they are disappointed that Spring is very reluctant to appear. More than one person has said that our forsythia is the only sign of Spring around here. We did have one day last week when the temperature reached 21 C. For a brief moment.

On the weekend we froze our way through the Washington County Antique Fair and picked up a few essential items, tools for Michael, hats for me! But I felt sorry for the vendors, especially on Sunday, it was very windy & cold.

I have done very little since arriving; plenty of jobs to do around the place, and yesterday, Susie showed me the thousands of weeds I have to remove from the flowerbeds. I could be here till next winter!

Most days I take a walk. The same walk, 40 minutes. But the views will be changing, as the leaves will soon appear on the trees & fill the landscape:

The Battenkill River joins the Hudson River a bit further down

Last years corn fields , soon to be ploughed, fertilised ( probably with silage from the local dairies) and planted

I know that those of you in Sydney have had a nasty Lurch into Winter, I hope the weather is a bit more reasonable now.

As I read about the El Nino likely to cause havoc next summer in SE Australia, the impact of climate change will be discussed here. Maybe one day, just as business is being asked to boycott Russia, countries that fail to address climate change will be ostracized. Yeah, right. The bushfires experienced in the Blue Mountains last October were happening as I was experiencing a personal trauma, I cannot forget them, nor the challenges faced by communities wanting to rebuild , with new building codes for which they were not insured.

April 2014

The day we arrived. Spring is late, so everyone tells us. The winter was long, cold, hard to endure.The locals are welcoming, seem happy that we are back. They don't say  'Welcome back', they say  'Welcome home'. Express concern for my health.

We light the wood stove. And feel grateful.