Spring!

Hi, Everyone!
We’ve been having really warm weather here. It’s more like summer than spring! One day this week was the warmest temperature for that date ever recorded here – 80 degrees F. in March! All my spring flower friends are blooming extra-early, even the ones that forgot where they were supposed to be!It’s hard to believe we might still have another snowstorm, but Grandma says it could happen.
I’ve been a good helper with the spring cleanup in the yard. There were lots of branches to pick up, and I even helped saw some of the big ones into smaller pieces. And I helped Grandma get a package ready to send to Bill-kun and Karin-chan. I know just how to fill out the customs form now!

Last year on St. Patrick’s Day (March 17) I found my very first crocus friend in bloom. This year, look how many flower friends I had on St. Patrick’s Day! Even my daffodil friends were getting ready to bloom!

Last week, Grandpa took a bag of chocolate chip cookies out of the freezer to take to Sodus and told Grandma that was the very last bag. So when we came back from Sodus, Grandma baked another big batch. I helped stir the dough in the big yellow bowl and add the chocolate chips. When the dough was mixed, I helped Grandma put spoonfuls on the cookie sheet. It was hard to get them in the right places! Grandpa and I put the cookies on cooling racks after they were baked while Grandma filled more cookie sheets. I helped put the cookies in bags to go in the freezer. Of course, Grandpa and I had to try some cookies to make sure they tasted OK before we froze them. They were yummy!
I

We had some cream left from the travel dinner, so Grandpa decided to make another batch of ice cream. This time, he made ginger ice cream, like we had in Australia and New Zealand. He decided to use three kinds of ginger: juice from grated fresh ginger mixed in with the cream, and bits of crystallized ginger and ginger snap cookie crumbs added as the ice cream was freezing. I helped Grandpa figure out when to add the ginger snap crumbs, so they wouldn’t get soggy. Grandpa thinks his ice cream doesn’t quite taste like what we ate at Abel Tasman, but I think it’s yummy!

Look how fast my flower friends have been growing this week! Here I am with my tulip and forsythia friends on Monday, and again three sunny, warm days later! Grandma and I put moth balls around the tulips because last year something ate them all, just as they were getting ready to bloom. We hope the moth balls will make the tulips smell nasty, instead of tasty, so they don’t get eaten. So far, so good!

Here I am with some more of my flower friends. Grandma thinks the double trumpet daffodil looks like me! Do you think so? Today, I made some new wildflower friends at Sodus. I was excited to see the yellow wildflowers because I thought they were dandelions. Flowers named after me are my favorites!

Last year, Grandma and Grandpa decided that the kitchen at Sodus needed a new floor. That project turned out to be more work than they expected! There was a hump in the subfloor, and Grandma and Grandpa had to crawl under the house to get the supports level. Then they moved the refrigerator over the hump to flatten it out! Now that the hump is gone, Grandpa is doing the next step, removing the old flooring. We got started on that today. Grandma and I pried off the wood tiles, and Grandpa worked on the vinyl tiles. That was hard work, because Grandpa glued all the tiles on really well when he built the kitchen! Grandma and I got all the wood tiles off, but my paws are really tired and I have splinters in my fur!

Love,
Lion-san