It's hard to believe that one "crop" of spring flowers is already done and we're on to the second wave. The crocuses, snowdrops and winter aconites have faded away and now we're seeing daffodils, grape hyacinths, the beginnings of tulips and the mystery plant here to the left. My plant identification skills aren't all they could be, this one looks familiar to me, but I have no idea what it is.

I was thrilled to spot a Yellow Shafted Northern Flicker in our backyard on Sunday afternoon. I have never seen one of these and had to look it up in the bird identification book to figure out what it was. Luckily I had the binoculars close at hand (though not the camera, sorry) and the bird stuck around for a while so I got a good look at him.

I've recently read all of the journal entries of Bill down at Enon Hall. Eight years ago he, his wife and young son purchased his ancestral home in Virginia's Northern Neck and they've been working on it ever since. I'm quite envious of his skills and the time to do so much of the work on the place themselves. It's really coming along and looks great. I did so appreciate hearing about their trials with contractors and their "loose" schedules/sense of time, delays in shipments, and other unexpected work slowdowns and holdups. It's nice to know that we're not the only ones experiencing these problems.

Despite having had this ceiling fan in our posession for, oh maybe a couple of months now, it's finally installed in the living room and we really like it. Like all of the other stuff we haphazardly chose for this room, it miraculously matches the furniture and decor.

While all of this snow is gone now, I wanted to post a few more pictures that I took with the other camera. The top picture shows some pretty large puffs of snow that had fallen and gathered around some buds on bushes. The bottom picture is just the view I saw on the way to my office.

I guess I had better post a couple of these snow pictures before it's all melted and forgotten.

While browsing through some old pictures, I just found this picture of the eastern end of the living room during construction. The opening we see here used to be the wall with the receptionist window on it.

More before and after photos. The top two photos show a little of the former configuration of the front room of the house. In the picture to the right you can see the window that was for the receptionist in the doctor's office that at one time had been run out of this house. When we purchased the house, the front room, what was probably once the parlor, was split up into three separate rooms; a reception area on the east, a receptionist's office in the center and another office on the west. We've had the two walls taken down to reassemble the room into one, additionally we've had an opening cut into what was the westernmost wall so it now opens into the foyer.

Then there's the furniture. Nice stuff huh? Well, after all the hoops and time it took us to get it, it should be nice. After ordering it from a major national retailer on 1/31, we finally got all the pieces just two weeks ago. For the first delivery, the sofa and loveseat were sent to parts unknown and never heard from again. When the shipping company calls and asks for a description of your lost furniture so they can put out an APB, don't hold out hope that they'll ever find it. The second delivery was plagued by some kind of pallet collapse accident en route which resulted in a sofa with a small tear in the upholstery and a loveseat with a broken support. Despite all the adversity, we finally got the stuff and really like it. In an interesting twist of fate it matches very well with our previously chosen draperies and our rugs scored on clearance long before the furniture entered the picture. All in all we're pretty happy with it all. We're hoping to put some Danish oil on the cherry that frames the wide foyer opening which should darken it up a little and highlight the beautiful wood.

I thought that I had better get out and take some pictures of the beautiful flowers that are springing up all over the yard before they are covered with snow in a couple of days. Yes friends, we are forecast to get some more snow this week. The weatherman has been stressing that it's not at all unusual to get 4-5 inches of snow in the month of April. Unfortunately after a couple of sunny, sixty degree days, it's all too easy to forget that fact.

I know that the top picture is a snowdrop, the middle, crocuses, but I'm at a loss for the blue ones in the bottom picture. They look really familiar to me, but I can't place them. What a treat it is to have all of these great flowers coming up. On their way we've also got daffodils, primrose and tulips.

In preparation for moving to the area we did some research on the local "flavor," specifically, where to find the best eats. Esteemed foodies Jane and Michael Stern, authors of Roadfood, Two for the Road, Chili Nation and more than twenty other books, as well as contributers to Gourmet Magazine, and commentators for NPR's Splendid Table have a great review of Doug's Fish Fry on their website. It's less than ten miles down the road, but it's taken us this long to finally give it a try. Doug's was everything the reviews reported it to be - tasty, good quality and with a big aquarium to entertain the kiddo. We had a feast of fried delights - mild haddock, crispy onion rings, french fries from real potatoes and delicious creamy frozen custard to top it all off. If you're in the area, you should give it a try. Next on our list of places to try is Jim's BBQ.

After a winter when the birdfeeder was barely touched, the local birdlife is finally starting to pick up. We've enjoyed seeing, and hearing, the Red Winged Blackbirds, Robins, Cardinals, Blue Jays, Finches, Starlings and Mourning Doves flitting around outside.