What is so rare..?

It is arguably one of my favorite times of year.  Spring is exploding around us, the days are warm, and most often the nights are cool. A walk around the place shows things growing...

Many things in various shades of white, one of my favorite (non) colors.  From dandelion
 heads just itching to be plucked and wished on, to..

25 baby "dinner" chickens. And...

the two lambs, growing nicely. Then there are these characters, which never fail to make me smile. I mean, just LOOK at them.  Has any bird ever been more improbable?

June is also the time when some of my favorite scents happen.  Lilacs and Lilly of the Valley are in bloom. Happy reminders of my childhood, perfuming the warm air in tantalizing wisps of fragrance. I have the windows open and it makes me giddy to catch a sweet-smelling breeze from time to time.

The vegetable garden is started.

Along with the rainbow chard and heritage potatoes we have tomatoes, asparagus, husk cherries, peppers, basil, dill, cilantro, more basil, and MORE basil, sage, peas, green beans and white pumpkins growing.  Last year I never got the garden planted, so I am delighted to be able to walk out this season and see life shooting out of the stony Maine soil.  I still have flowers to plant, but step by step we are getting things in good order for summer. 

The pasture is lush. SO lush that poor Chanel must wear a "grazing muzzle" so she does not overeat and get too fat, or worse, ill.

The basket around her mouth has a hole in the bottom so she can get grass, but only in small quantities.  In this picture she has clearly been trying to take the thing off, and has partially succeeded, the top band is supposed to be behind her ear, not in front.  I look pity and removed it for a while.  I'll go out in a bit and strap it back on.  Meanwhile, she came up close for a belly rub, and showed me her beautiful summer dappled coat in the afternoon light.

The bunnies are back in their hutch after their stint in the green house. The goats like to lie near them.

Or on their climbing spools...

Perhaps pondering, as I do, the famous lines;

“AND what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays;
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;” -James Russell Lowell