Is it spring already?

Wow, was Monday a bad weather day or what?

It'd been raining off and on for the past three days anyways, but Monday's thunderstorms and the tornadoes that the northern part of Alabama experienced were something else (My heart and prayers go out to all of the people affected). We don't usually expect severe weather like this until around March. In fact, the floods that devastated my hometown during the 1990s all occurred in March, as well as, the deadly EF4 tornado that struck our county in 2007.

Not to mention the unusually warm winter we've had this season. When you have long triple-digit summers with humidity so high that it feels like a wall of water and heat enveloping you when you step outside, fall and winter become a time of the year that you look forward to if for no other reason than to just have a little relief. We're known for our mild winters in Lower Alabama, but it feels less like January and more like April.

And the final sign that spring is well on its way can be attributed to our geese. Dear, sweet Hugo, our lone gander and one of my favorites, has turned into a hissing, neck-stretched-out romancer. As soon as his change in behavior started at the beginning of the month, we went on the look-out for the girls' eggs. After three weeks of no eggs I was beginning to wonder if I was just imagining that he was more territorial. Today, it finally happened . . . we found one lone goose egg. I'm so excited and can't wait for a few more so I can load them into one of the incubators.

Eggs from Jersey Giants,
the very first chocolate eggs laid by our Marans,
and the first goose egg of the season.

Edited to add:
A picture of the ducks playing in a puddle
today after a storm (Thursday).