Early Spring Happenings

This winter the weather in Montana has been quite unusual.  The mountains to our west are coated  in a thick blanket of snow, while the plains where we live are still fairly dry and wind blown.  The past few weeks have been bright and sunny- aside from 2 quick snow storms- and life is beginning to return to the hills and trees. Underneath the brown grass of winter is an almost undetectable green hue--gentle and delicate, coaxing forth the promise of new life.  The trees are budding out and perennial flowers are poking their heads up toward the warm sunshine.

Our lives have been full of springtime activity.  Easter, of course, is a highlight for us this time of year.  Taylor was especially excited for her 1st Communion held on Maundy Thursday.

Of course, no Easter is complete without dying eggs.  We actually had to buy white eggs in order to color them since the 14-16 we collect from our chickens are either brown, green or blue.

Easter Sunday was a beautiful day!  After worship, we enjoyed a relaxing afternoon with family and friends sitting outside, eating a wonderful ham/lamb meal and playing horseshoes.

Daniel and Taylor also worked this spring on their public speaking skills with the Teton County 4-H Demonstration Day.  This was Daniel's second demonstration and Taylor's first.  They both worked VERY hard to come up with their topic, put together a 5-7 minute demonstration and  prepare visual aides.

Taylor demonstrated how to put together a professional looking bouquet.  She loves flowers and even spent a few afternoons with our local florist perfecting her technique.

Daniel chose a project from his favorite book, "Dangerous Things for Boys, " and demonstrated how to fireproof material with alum.  This project will also be tweaked a bit for the science fair.

With the warm sunshine and increasing length of daylight, two of our chickens went "broody."  They were ready to be mama's, so we collected about 14 eggs and they snuggled right in.

Genti, Daniel's favorite hen, has been a mama before and did a wonderful job.  We put this variety of eggs under her and about 10 minutes laer, the broody pen looked with this:

All the eggs were safely nestled under her.

Our other broody-Gossie- is a bit of a whirlwind, so we will see if her delicate eggs make it.  Here she is pushing the eggs under her soft breast feathers for incubation.

Birds are also a wonder to behold as they return to the frozen north after a warm winter in the tropics.  Eight miles east of us is one of the snow geese and swans favorite places to stop for a break.  One warm Sunday afternoon we went out to see the swans.  There were thousands of them.

While we were out an impending storm made its way into Choteau.  In this part of the west you can see storms coming from quite a ways out.  This one looked ominous, but proved to be a fast moving threat.

This last photo shows a group of Canadian geese flying into Freezeout Lake.  What a loud, honking sight to see!

While most of these photos are of the kids and our natural surroundings, my life would certainly not be complete without this special guys who makes spring a fun time for all of us!