Spring! Spring!!

Happy dog!  It's finally warm enough to take her out hiking with me, which is her favorite thing to do in all the world.  The trails near me are remote enough that I can usually let her run off leash...she chases squirrels and dashes through every mud puddle and stream that she can find and generally wears herself out completely.  She doesn't ask for much; just food, water, love and some good runs outside.  How could I turn down that face?  And why should I try??  (Yes, there is a dog in that fourth picture down; she's just 50 feet or so ahead of me on the trail.  Pretty area, isn't it?)

Things are finally looking good in the garden, too.  The second round of flowers are blooming (daffodils, hyacinths and crocuses have been and gone already):

Irises

These peach-colored irises spontaneously showed up in a bed of yellow irises last year.  Cool, huh??

Bleeding hearts

Azaleas

More azaleas

Lilies of the valley

Pots on the deck!  Tomato, serrano pepper, jalapeño pepper, basil, and two flowers of some sort that my younger kids brought home from school for Mother's Day.

Planted the garden over the weekend as well: five more tomato plants, more peppers (sweet and hot), more basil (Thai and Italian), rosemary, cilantro, parsley, cucumbers.  Yum.  Also more azaleas and three new rosebushes--Himself is getting into the act...he's the rose guy.  Too high-maintenance for me!  (The roses, not him.)

Now I just need to mulch it all!!  Ugh.