Cap and Helsa's babies--Two Tips on the left, and Sunny on the right. 

For the true experience of this pic, cut it out and wrap it a little around your head. Oh, and I'm not so squat in real life (unless I am, in which case don't tell me). 

Oh, the power of the handsaw. 

Ian's latest passion--making panoramic pictures. He'll send you the program link if you want it. This is inside our willow copse. 

Spackle inspecting our latest cark deercas. About an hour after this, we were walking along far from it when Spackle suddenly caught the scent and raced off, directly toward it. Gross. Fortunately, he came when we called him. The fifth time. Also, we were alerted to this particular bit of "fertilizer" by the golden eagle eating from it. Cap across the street thinks it was probably hit by a car and made it just into our field.

One of the bulbs Ian planted a while ago 

Calin threading rebar to hold it together. 

Ian making a protective cage. 

Purple lilac buds, ready to burst! 

Ian and lilacs 

Dogwood, closer up. Look how happy! 

Dogwood, well-established. 

More teeny-tiny beauty bush buds 

Still looks like a stick . . . 

Kolquitzia (kwitzia?), happily establishing itself.  

Protective Measures

We went up to Orcas yesterday to fence in our new plantings, any that had survived, that is. So far, the transplanting experiments have been a complete success. Everything showed signs of new life (even the willow, which was toppled when we arrived but which we righted and restaked. It's still a bit loose in its soil, but then the soil is still very wet . . . ), and yet nothing showed signs of being snacked on by deer or rabbits. And . . . we made it to the island just fine (left Seattle at 7:30, had almost an hour in Anacortes to walk around with the dog) . . . but leaving was another matter. The boat we wanted, at 6:15 (because the next--and last--boat was at 9:00 and that would get us home way too late on a school night), turned out to be overflowing at 5:40 when we arrived. We felt better when we found out that it had already been full at 3:15 when the previous boat had left. This sort of craziness--having to be at a ferry five hours before it leaves in order to get on it--is something relatively typical for summer Sundays. The problem yesterday was that the quarterly ferry schedule was still on winter (until 2 April), which means only four boats a day or something crazy, and there was a big father-son thing at Camp Orkila over the weekend. So, even though we're very tired (well, I'm tired and Ian's still in bed), and we did, in fact, get home around midnight which is too late for a school night, the day was great and we have tons of good pictures of tiny buds. Which, much as I don't have a huge emotional attachment to spring like I do to other seasons, is still pretty cool. Enjoy! (by the way, the photo here is from Anacortes, not our land. Does anyone know what it is? It's pretty and we want one.)