The farm in early March

I visited the farm on Monday, almost two weeks ago from today. I was lucky to pick a warm and for the most part even a sunny day. It didn't look like the forecast was going to come true when I was leaving home - the sky was all cloudy and grey - but when I was approaching the farm it cleared to blue and sun came out.

The pics currently in the header and sidebar of my blog - a green neighbor's field and a hazel bush in bloom - were taken on that day. As well as the lime tree, old puff-ball and ferns. The vegetation is only beginning to show. It is always two or three degrees colder out there than it is in the city, so I wasn't expecting to see much green. But I actually found a couple of buds already opening into leaves or swollen and waiting for just a little more sun.

alchemilla mollis (lady's mantle)


tulips


nepeta (catmint)

The news I learned was that there had been a small fire in the neighbor's birch thicket and firemen arrived to extinguish it. Apparently, the branches of one of the trees were touching the power line and caught fire, which then spread a bit. There was no major damage, but as a result later during the week the village administration sent workers to clear the thicket and do an inspection along the power line. The line crosses our property almost midway in the east-west direction. I don't think they climbed over the fence because I didn't notice any branches down within the fenced area. This might be because last fall I cut down a single young maple which used to grow directly underneath the line, and there simply weren't any other trees left interfering with it. The village workers had, however, found a large pine branch, quite high up the tree, growing straight towards the line on the very eastern border of the property. They approached it from behind the fence, and cut it down.

old pine tree trimmed around the power line