More wildflowers... more company.

I am all wildflower-ed out. March was a busy month..... Cookie Madness and St. Patty's Day and two weekends of friends coming to see the flower-filled pastures.

V & S were here on Saturday, along with their son and daughter-in-law. We hadn't seen 'the kids' since their wedding last summer, so it was good to see them again. Friends H & K also came for lunch, to visit with V & S..... it's always nice to have a full dining room table, but I always forget how much work goes into planning and preparing. I can't seem to scale down the preparations, either..... there are always handmade place cards and little favors and/or gifts as everyone leaves.

And V brought along her own little favor gifts for the ladies..... embroidered silk travel bags to pack clothing or shoes before they get tucked into a suitcase. It was S's birthday, so V baked a buttermilk pound cake for him and we had that for dessert. And I left all of my cookbooks on the shelf and didn't make another dessert.... V's cake was all we needed and it was delicious. (So I did scale back there, come to think of it.)

And here we are in April already, with Easter less than a week away. Usually by this time, I have place cards and favors ready for Easter Sunday. Not this time. Easter Sunday has come along quicker than ever this year...... between the Cookie Madness we had in late March, then the visits from friends... Easter just stuck its head around the corner the morning after the lunch with V & S.

I had the St. Patty's Day decorations out for the month of March, and didn't put all the shamrocks and leprechauns away till this past Sunday morning. As soon as that decoration box went back into the closet, I took out the Easter boxes..... and out came my Easter Parade. Porcelain bunnies and chicks and ducks. And then the mailman came with a box from my cousin F, who sent us a beautiful Fitz & Floyd Easter basket, filled with hand painted pansies and the most adorable little bunny. That basket has taken pride-of-place in the center of the dining room table. Just beautiful...... the star of this year's Easter Parade.

Easter may just come and go with a whisper this year... and that will be fine with me.

Our mother-hen Scarlett is once again sitting in her nesting box, trying to hatch a fake egg that she's keeping warm and protected underneath her feathers. She's in her 'broody' stage now, and if she does the same thing she did last year, she will stay on that nest for about four weeks. JS was going to get some fertilized eggs for me to put under Scarlett, but she's busy with other things now, so we'll let Scarlett be a surrogate-hen another time. Scarlett has been 'broody' twice a year since we got her, so there will be another chance for egg-hatching.

The barn swallows are taking over our porches..... three pairs of the swallows are in three nests on the back porch, one pair has taken over an old nest on the front porch, and another pair built a new nest on the side porch. When we walk up the porch steps, all the birds start chattering and flying in circles over us.... surely they must recognize us by now. It's like that old Alfred Hitchcock movie "The Birds."

Spring has definitely sprung here. And on most days, the temperatures have crossed over into Summer. The fields are filling up with yellow Texas stars..... they've grown so high that the bluebonnets are just about able to peek up through the taller yellow flowers. When we look out on our pastures from the upstairs balconies, there is a sea of yellow with touches of red and blue dancing through it.

This is the time of year when we pinch ourselves..... we live here..... we actually live here in the midst of all this beauty.