May- The Lovely Month Of May

 The glorious, mad, merry month of May. I love it. The still cool evening, the moisture in the air, and the warm days before the bugs get going. The atmosphere gives way to towering thunderstorms the fully saturate the waiting soil.

The focus of the early portion of the month was taken up with weekly baking for a local shop, and moving the items in the overflowing seeding shed to the greenhouse.  The increase in warmth and direct, real sunshine was heaven for the plants.

Whole Wheat Challah and Whole Wheat Sugar Cookies 

Mother's Day Plant Sale

The warming month was welcome to everything on the ranch. 

Sunbathing Suzie

Sunbathing Chickens

We did find time to have a new college graduate. 

Surprisingly enough, graduation day was only 40 degrees, howling winds, and threatened rain, but picture day was glorious!

The lilacs and the iris' bloomed right on schedule.

The weather was simply glorious this May. We had plenty of rain and after the first weekend of the month, it warmed up considerably, but not to the point of having to try to keep the alpacas cool before the sheering team to get to them.

  

This year the team was coming at the end of May instead of June. It's a good thing, because they were thick, and woolly, and crazy.

Yup, that's the same critter.

By the 25th the soil was warm enough and wet enough to get the garden in the ground. Row after row of tomatoes with zinnias (for the hummingbirds) and marigolds in between. Green beans and decorative corn with a patch of dill especially planted for the Swallowtail butterflies filled out the rest. I made room for sunflower giants for the song birds in the fall. (Blackberries and Horseradish are permanent residents.)

It always looks so clean and happy before the weeds try to invade.

By now the babies are 8 weeks old and actually look like chickens. The big girls would invade the grow out pen during the day and visit. By the time I was sick and tired of cleaning up after them and the mess they made of the shop, they were just fine when I decided to chuck them into the main coop for good. No fuss, no muss, no fights.

As we slide into June, the maintenance month, I leave you with a real live, red, 6-spotted Ladybug.