Round and About Sunnybrook Farm - Early Spring Chronicles 1

My title for this article is misleading.  I don't really live on a farm at all.  Our house sits in the middle of three lots in a small town.  Round and About on Sunnybrook Farm was the title of my very favorite Little Golden Book when I was a small child.  I decided at age four that if I ever owned a farm, I'd name it Sunnybrook.  I also planned to have hundreds of pygmy goats on that farm instead of cows.  Life doesn't always work out, does it?

Yesterday my camera and I searched for signs of early spring here in my own backyard.  We found a few.  Combine these photos with a bit of a southern breeze, a 75 degree temperature and a clear, bright blue sky, and you'll understand the pitch of my raging spring fever.

The former owners planted this redbud tree in about the worst place they could have picked, directly under several towering walnut trees.  The poor little tree doesn't get enough sunshine in summer to flourish.  Van, at one point about ten years ago, cut it down to its stump.  The next spring it sprouted out branches and came back.  With the idea that anything that wants to survive that much should, I made him leave it alone.  It's spring's first trumpet song around here, often blooming before the last snow smacks us.