A couple of weeks ago I was feeling pretty stuck at home and started looking around the yard for photo opportunities. It was kind of fun looking hard for things to shoot and we had just gotten some rain so everything looked fresh and green. After a few days I had some shots I liked but was kind of burned out on it. It is not canoeing but you might like some of them and might get inspired to get out in the yard. The season here might be ahead of where you are but it is coming.

I got some bees which are going crazy right now, a dove that is nesting, some fruit that is starting to set, some yard knick knacks and of course the resident dog.

Ex-Bozemanite? With all that green, I figured you're not there now!

Beautiful photos, Johnh. Obviously your yard is far south of ours--our fruit trees haven't blossomed yet. But I have also enjoyed looking for lovely or interesting things in my yard these past few weeks, and I have found a few. These were taken at the lake cottage, not our home.

And you're way ahead of Maine, Lynda. I have blossom envy. My only flowers are crocuses.

I have some family in Bozeman but I am in Northern California. I see some daffodils there. We are through the daffodil stage. It is nice to have an early spring but the summer can get long, hot and dry. It is great for growing fruit but you have to irrigate just about everything.

I used to plant tulips, but they are just salad for the deer. If I could only have one kind of flowers in the whole world, it would be the spring bulb flowers, like crocus, snowdrops, daffodils and narcissus. After the winter, it just lifts my spirits to see the early bloomers.

Deer are brutal on the yard. I planted some blueberries and they mowed them down. I have a tall fence around them now. I look forward to a big crop someday.

Speaking of Maine, when I was a kid in the sixties we went to Swans Island a few times. I was 3 or 4 so I don’t remember much but I do have one distinct memory. We crossed a bay to a beach in a aluminum boat with an outboard motor. While we were at the beach it got stormy and rough. There was adult discussion about how we would get back which made it seem like a serious hazard to me. I remember laying in the bottom of the boat and looking up at the adults and the spray flying by as we pounded through the waves. I probably gained a healthy fear of small boats on rough water which has served me well in canoeing.

Siberian Squill

In Minneapolis. Tulips next week I hope.

Big Tent: " Siberian Squill "

Saw some of those in Basset Creek park near the pond today.

Not In My Backyard but close by. The size of the flowers made them almost unnoticeable from eye level. The size of the bear made it very noticeable next to the highway.

Zulu: " "

That bear is so fat! That looks like fall fat, not early spring fat.

It looks like doughnut fat from a bait pile last fall!

Spartan2: "I used to plant tulips, but they are just salad for the deer. If I could only have one kind of flowers in the whole world, it would be the spring bulb flowers, like crocus, snowdrops, daffodils and narcissus. After the winter, it just lifts my spirits to see the early bloomers."

The deer never seem to bother my snowdrops. They eat everything else, even nibble the fresh rhubarb shoots which I have been told "deer never do" and they devour my hosta shoots.

Zulu: "It looks like doughnut fat from a bait pile last fall!"

I just wish bears were so amiable that I could leap onto that heap of fat and fur and live in Cuddletown, USA for a few minutes.

I get lots of boy and girl turkeys, mostly girl deer but quite a few button bucks and had 4 bucks in the yard at the same time and that was cool to see. Lots of birdies and woodpeckers, an owl, bunnies, raccoon, opposum, squirrel!

Doesn't seem much different from my previous home on the Gunflint but I know the difference. Can't get the deer to eat from my hand.

Mocha - You have some nice wildlife there. Potential for some great photo opportunities. I get squirrels, rats, opossums, raccoons in my yard. They all want to eat anything edible I plant. We had turkeys living downtown for a while. They relocated them. One was very aggressive and was shot. Turkeys walking the sidewalks downtown are not what you want.