I'm back.

The day after my last entry, I took my wife for an MRI to find out why a pulled leg muscle was not healing. That was the beginning of three weeks in two hospitals with four different surgical procedures. After being told to expect cancer, we were relieved to find out she had osteomyelitis, a serious bone infection, but not life threatening. She is back home on the farm over at the in-law's house getting anti-biotic treatments three times daily. Her mobility is restricted and there is one more surgery planned for early summer. Older and younger son and I have been living between the two households for the last several weeks and will probably keep it up until Susan is off the antibiotics.

April all but vanished while I was sleeping on hospital couches and spending long hours on the road. I usually try and slow down and pay attention to the burst of life in Spring. This year I caught it in glimpses, while heading somewhere else. We have some late lambs in the field, like the fellow pictured above who showed up on Saturday. Coming in late at night the headlights would pick out the fox kits heading for the culvert they were denning in until the rains came. A pair of cottontail rabbits come out onto the lawn during the early morning and evening hours. They appear to have been as busy as the foxes, judging from the small rabbit who ran under the hillside shed Sunday as I walked down to the barn.

Over at the in-laws house the peacocks are strutting for the hens, and the hens are shrieking at the slightest disturbance as they pick out nest sites. I will leave you with a picture of one of the cocks in full display, trying to add color to an otherwise gray afternoon.