We're at the beginning of what is predicted to be a full week of sunshine and blue skies with temperatures in the high 60s, low 70s!
I'll have to see it to believe it but so far so good, it's been absolutely gorgeous for the last two days.

    Signs of Spring are everywhere!      

              

                                         

Those are maple buds and 'flowers', they're early this year and hopefully there won't be another frost soon because they will freeze and not produce their fruits/seeds.

Daffodils are flowering in full, and due to the two sunny days we had I spotted the first Dandelions!

    

And in our neighbor's meadow the Black Angus herd is welcoming the first calves!

               

(I think these are actually already a couple of weeks old but I hadn't seen them out yet)

Our landlords took advantage of the weather and started to plant the first of 8000(!) pine trees they are going to plant all over the property:



A lot of it is done by a machine but there is some 'hands-on' involved as well:

    


It's their plan to retire from their roofing business in the coming couple of years and grow christmas-trees instead.
They're getting older and roofing is quite hard on the body whereas these trees, once established, are very low maintenance.

James has picked up where he left with working on the office before the rain started last week, and is progressing nicely.
The doors are in (one for the storage-side and one for the office side):

And the siding is on!
He also installed a small AC-unit, the sun will be baking on this south-west side!

And since we let no celebrations go by without joining in, especially when there's food involved, I made corned beef with 'all the trimmings' for St. Patrick's Day:

           
I baked an Irish soda bread as well.
It rose a little too well (I might have added a tablespoon of baking-soda instead of a teaspoon?) and than deflated so there was a crack all along the side, but it tastes just fine!

                                                         

St Patrick, who actually wasn't even Irish, is known for bringing Christianity to Ireland but one of the most popular myths about the Irish saint is that he rid the country of snakes, however modern science has since ruined that belief for everyone.
As Ireland has always been an incredibly cold country, scientists have said that it's highly unlikely that there were any snakes to begin with and there are no fossils to disprove the theory.

It makes for funny cartoons though:

                                                   

And that's it for the week.
Hopefully another 5 more days to go before the rain will be back.
We'll see, we're going to try to get the office watertight and painted before that, so .. back to work!