Most of this week looked like in the picture above, grey and wet. There were a couple of days it literary rained .. all .. day .. long!
At the top of the pond is where the runoff water from the parcel next-door, which sits slightly above us, comes down and when it's raining like this it creates a small waterfall!

                                    

                                                                                                                 

As I mentioned before, fortunately our pond drains into the pond below us through a big culvert and even further down to a third pond, so we'll never flood!
Which is great, since we don't want to repeat the flooding (like this one) we went through, on several occasions, while living in Louisiana!

         

Whenever there was a little lull in the weather I ran out to squeeze in a little walk, although there wasn't much 'running' in all the mud.
You had to be careful not to slip-slide and end up on your but!

The last two days have been better though, James even went golfing yesterday, and I took some time putzing around in the yard and trying to find more signs of Spring.
Like this Vinca:

                                                                  

And this weeping willow at the third, and lowest, pond. Like all willows, it likes to have it's feet wet!

In Serena's garden the Forsythia is flowering:

Even the grass is starting to grow and our landlord Bret already did a first mowing, after cleaning up a grown-over area from some blackberries and old fencing.
Which is where he encountered this Gopher snake:

                                                         

It's a harmless snake, with a beautiful pattern, and actually very helpful for gopher and field mice control, but they're still a little creepy to me.
(Especially when you come up on him when walking to the garbage can and don't see or hear him until you're very close .. too close!)

Talking about snakes .. they remind me of St Patrick's Day which we 'celebrated' last Monday.
There's the old myth that St Patrick cleared Ireland from snakes and since we never had a saint wandering around these areas we do have them!
Of course we're not Catholic or even remotely Irish but hey, there's food involved, and that is always a reason to party!

We didn't have any Guinness or whiskey or even Irish coffee, but for most Irish this saying is right on the money for this day!

I did bake Soda-bread though:

This is probably the easiest bread to bake, just flour, water, salt and baking soda and I added raisins to half of the dough ... which we secretly like the best.

                 

                

Like always, I made Corned beef (in the Instant Pot) for dinner with all the usuals (as in potatoes, cabbage and carrots).
Also as always, I couldn't find the point-cut I wanted so I had to make do with the flat cut, which is considerably leaner and doesn't come out as tender as the point, but it tasted fine and that's what matters!
(Note to self: search for a point cut early and/or try the slow cooker next time. Rumor has it the meat stays juicier that way?)

Besides all that there wasn't much a-do this week, compliments of the weather.
I stayed inside, did some spinning and embroidering, read a lot and worked on this horrible puzzle, which I'd vowed never to make again:

It's hands down my most difficult one, but so interesting and tempting (cats and books!) so here I am .. falling for it's siren-song again!
Having said that I have the slightest itsy-bitsy feeling, that it's going just a teensy-weensy little bit easier than last time?

As Sherlock Holmes said: "Have courage, Watson"