ARRRGH.  One of these days I'm going to learn to write my entries in a Word document first, then transfer them over here to the blog.  Obviously, today was NOT that day.  You'll have to take my word for it when I say that I had just waxed elephants about the beauty and symbolism of spring, the new life, the new start, and all that jazz.  It's gone, gone like a blog entry that was't saved and you push the refresh button. Oh, it WAS a blog entry that wasn't saved and I pushed the refresh button.

Anywho, I'll leave it to my gentle readers to insert the appropriate prose about spring as you see fit. 

My original thoughts, as I remember, in bullet form:

- grew up in south Florida, on an island, great- but no spring

-Spring is still thrilling

-pollen is NOT thrilling, unless you count runny eyes, runny noses, and yellow drifts on the cars as thrilling

-microscopic pictures of pollen are scary

-our first sign of spring are these tiny "fairy flowers" that pop up in our yard. They are truly tiny, the whole stalk of the bluebell looking ones are about the size of my 3 year old daughter's pinky finger.  The white violets are the size of her finger tip, and the even tinier white star flowers are about the size of my one year old daughter's fingertip.

- after these flowers comes the pink crab apple tree in our front yard.  It's beautiful, but afflicted with tent caterpillars which effectively kick us out of the yard for a month or so after they hatch.  I don't suppose we HAVE to leave, but unless you like creepy crawlies dropping on your head, it's a good idea to vacate.

- the only thing better than discovering fairy flowers is finding baby animals at the local farm park.

- I think this is about how far I was when I lost the first post... so from here on out the bullets are all me. You can still insert  appropriately springy prose as desired so as to enhance your blog-reading experience.

-Joyana and the ducks... you really had to be there.  She loved them, she squawked at them and they squawked back.  The bigger kids got their kicks by chasing the ducks and geese.  I half heartedly issued the order to stop teasing the fowl, but then realized that if the ducks didn't like it, they could always turn around and nip, and the kids were the closest they've ever come to actually CATCHING a bird, so I rescinded the order and let the chase continue.

This picture of Joey and the duck amuses me; look at their posture, they are the same!  These ducks are some kind of odd breed and they stand up to walk, as opposed to "normal" ducks who sit more squattily and waddle.

As great as ducks are, we really came to see the baby lambs and kids. Look at this little guy (or girl, I dunno), I just want to hug it! (ok in the interest of full disclosure, I want to spin it's wool and knit with it, but I'd still hug it first!)

The highlight of our visit (for me at least) was seeing these kids who were literally just minutes old. Some of the pictures I have are a bit, uh, graphic, but to be there while this mommy was delivering was just thrilling!

Here is the first meal