In our neck of the woods

Don't you sometimes wonder where these unusual sayings come from?  I do, and there are several in my vocabulary that I use frequently and have no idea of their origination; other than my mom or dad used them, and so, I do.  You know how that goes, right?  Kind of like my mom and dad called one of my favorite dishes, "fried potatoes".  They came from the midwest years before I was born, Missouri in fact.  My good friend and neighbor, Kelly's family were originally from Wisconsin.  Her family called the same dish, "raw fries".  Interesting.  Either that, or I'm easily amused.

According to our weatherman, we're experiencing one of the driest years (so far) on record, well since they've been keeping those kinds of records anyway.  Back to the '40's, I think.  In fact, our winter of 2012/2013 has been quite mild and overall unusually dry.  We're just continuing that trend into early spring.  I'm not complaining.  It's been beautiful and perfectly comfortable.

The spring flowers are blooming in earnest now.  Below is a picture of my heavenly scented daphne bush.  Oh, how I wish you could smell this...it's just delicious!  One of my favorites.  It's actually burst forth into more open blooming than this and its' scent is heady.  Soon will come the tulips and my lilac bush.

Mountain Heather - beautiful, but not much scent

This is one of our two cats, Snip.  In an accident or more likely an altercation with another cat; quite possibly with our other cat Patch, she lost sight in one of her eyes.  As you may or may not already know, Patch only has one good eye.  Each cats' opposing eye is good; so between the two of them, if they stand side by side, make a perfectly good-sighted, two-headed cat.  :)  Interesting little factoid there...

Ruby basking in the warm, morning sunshine.  And speaking of Patch; he's in the background eating a freshly-caught mouse.  Hmmmm, fresh mouse!  Sorry, did not notice that until I'd already posted it here.

 Annie enjoying a good roll in the sunshine.

 Looking down upon our little homestead from the twin oaks, so often in the background of many of my photographs.

 Ruby having a sniff of something interesting at the base of one of the twin oaks.  This is looking  northeast of our house, towards Portland some 35-40 miles away.

 Another shot looking North/Northeast from the twin oaks.

 Looking  west from the twin oaks down upon our homestead, and our ponies in their pasture.
Those little white sticks are newly planted filbert/hazlenut trees.  In years to come, the view from our home will look vastly different.

 Wide angle shot looking west towards our place.  The Coast Range mountains in the distance.

 Our ponies.  L-R Kadie, Eagle, Ladde, Shad and Sugar far right.  Not sure where Harley is.

 This is where we've called home for 18 years now.  Someday, we'd like to spruce up the two outside shelters.  They're a bit peter tumbledown, but keep the rain off the horses.  Our to-do list never seems to get shorter...

 The coast range got a fresh dusting of snow overnight.  

 The old grainery due North of us.  In this thicket of oak trees is a small, meandering creek where I taught Harley about creek crossings when he was a wee thing.

 The Yamhill Valley, so named for the Yamhill River that flows through this area.  Rich farmland and lots of horses reside within.  This is across the street from us and looking West towards the Pacific Ocean on the other side of the Coast Range mountains in the distance.

Looking a bit more Northwest from our farm, you can see the hills around us are dotted with grapes.  In the last 20 or so years, our area is a mecca of wineries where world-class Pinot Noir wines, among others are made.  We live in the heart of the Northwest's Wine Country.  

 Shad finally spotted Ruby and I coming back.  There's Harley on the far left, then Merlin, Kadie and Shad.  A pretty good shot of our neighbor's place.  They are a horse rescue called the United SPCA.  The mare being loaded onto their trailer was going to her new home.  

 Eagle having a morning nap in the middle of his breakfast.  

 Ladde watching me, watching him.  He and Sugar have fallen so hopelessly in love that, if left alone now, Sugar pitches a hissy fit and runs all around.  Not what she needs to be doing, so Ladde has to play pasture buddy to Sugar.  Poor baby...

Spring has definitely arrived around here, and I am so thankful.  We're very comfortable temperature wise, a few showers here and there, mixed with a fair amount of warm sunshine.  Flowers, trees in bloom, horses shedding like crazy and our lawn growing in out of control mode.  I can now walk out in the pasture without wearing my Muck boots.  We're even supposed to have a dry Easter weekend with temps hitting 70 degrees!  Whoohoo!!  I realize that many of you are still in the icy grip of old man winter.  Will keep you all in our prayers that spring will be arriving in your neck of the woods any day now.

Until next time,
Lorie @ Cingspots