The Changing Seasons – April in Review

April is a month so full of excitement, plans, ideas, (later than normal) seed starting, and full on Spring Fever.

It’s also a month full of weed pulling, garden plotting and re-plotting, and frost warnings.

I find myself intermittently holding my breathe and practicing deep breathing a lot in April.

April epitomizes the changing seasons.

Being new to both this gorgeous property and the area, everything is, literally, brand new.  I am unsure what to expect in the way of winds and rains and the potential for snow.

On a bright note, we sit at a lower elevation here than we did in Santa Fe, which generally means that we see temperatures that are a few degrees warmer than we used to.  So, when we went on our trip to see family and friends in mid-April, we worried a bit about the temperature drops that were being forecasted while we were away, but trusted they wouldn’t cause too great of damage to the blossoming fruit trees…especially since we would be gone and not able to do anything about them.

We were wrong.  At least partially.

We lost the Apricots for the year (my favorite!), as well as some of the nectarines and peaches (though not all)!  However, the apples and pears appear to be just fine 🙂

And the grapes?  They’re just fine, too…and growing like crazy!

And so it goes.

And so it grows.

Oh, and hey, I would be silly not to mention the acequia that started running on April 1st which has laid before us a whole new set of skills to learn with its massive gates and super cool pumps…with its valves, hoses, and beautiful, life giving potential.

Water rights rock 🙂

Now, did you see those cute little birds in the pics above?  Not the single Maran, but the set of three and the duo?  Sweet, right?

Those cute little birds will hopefully survive the summer and grow up to be our Thanksgiving dinner.

Yes, we’re finally raising turkeys!  After talking about it for years, we finally have the space to do it.  We have four Broad Breasted Bronze pullets who are about a month old (those are the bigger, darker turkeys above) and eight Bourbon Red almost-pullets (the itty bitty, cute, blond guys above) who are just over a week old now.

We’re raising a few for us and a few for each of two friends…but I can tell you more about that later 😉

With May speeding along in front of us at a rapid pace, I’m hopeful we can stay away from any remaining freezes and frost warnings for the next couple of weeks. I am also hopefully (and fully intending) that I will be able to scrape enough time together to get out into the garden and get the whole thing planted out before it gets re-over-taken by weeds.  Wish me luck!?

Happy May, everyone!

xoxo,
M

P.S. I’m linking up to the Monthly Photo Challenge hosted by Cardinal Guzman. I will be spending at least the next year tracking the temperatures, weather, and general seasons (both through photography and through simple journaling/notes on the calendar) in an attempt to set us up for our best successes. All of the photos in this post were taken over the course of the month of April.  You can find last month’s photo here.

Feel free to jump in on the challenge, or just pop around to the other posts!  It’s lots of fun to see what the seasons look like around the world