images of the morning

The blackberries are blooming, and the wild roses. The smell is heavenly.

Wild roses growing along the driveway…

And here are some blackberry blooms in the gigantic blackberry patch near the pond.

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We really need to manage that blackberry patch a bit more–it is an impenetrable tangle of brambles and old canes. But we still get gobs of blackberries, just from picking along the edges. There seem to be two kinds, or maybe two very different soils, because some are small, intense and bright, while in another section they are spectacularly sweet, and huge.

The tulip poplars are doing their thing, too. The ground is covered with these:

I love thinking of the bees collecting from all of these flowers. One of the cool things with the top bar hives is that it is very easy to harvest a small amount of honey at a time (one bar) letting you taste honey made from different blooms. The privet honey we had the other day tasted like sweet privet smells. I would love to try wild rose honey! Maybe I’ll go visit the bees tonight.

And here is what the kids did with the kids for at least an hour this morning.

The goat babies are totally spring loaded. The don’t run so much as speed-bounce from one end of the goat yard to another, colliding with whatever and bouncing off like rubber balls. They are hilarious, endlessly entertaining!

And did you know that goats can dance?