The Show-off in the Side Yard

If you follow the blog, you know that I've had the cows eating all the clover and winter grass in the yard before I mow it.  No sense on letting that good clover go to waste when Daisy, Rosie, and Maggie can convert it into milk for us.  Once they finish eating a section that I have partitioned off in the yard with electric fence, I mow it.

Our live oak trees are dropping lots of leaves right now and putting on new growth.  I mow swaths where the remaining grass and leaves are thrown to the inside.  This allows the leaves to get chopped up pretty fine. When I'm done, there is one pretty neat row of chopped leaves and grass.  I'll rake it all up and put it in a wagon and bring to the garden where I'll fill the area between the rows with leaves.  Everything goes back into the soil.

If you look between the branches of the leaf-less tree below, you can see Rosie and Daisy grazing in the front yard.  I'll tell you more about the tree in a bit.

Cows grazing in the front yard

The tree with the pink blooms and no leaves (yet) is the redbud tree.  I got this tree free as a gift for joining the Arbor Day Foundation one year.  It was actually not technically a tree when I got it, but a stick.  This is what it looked like when I got it in the mail:

Image Credit

I planted the little stick and it flourished.  I was able to dig it up and replant it in the side yard where it competes for attention this time of year with the Japanese Magnolia.  Both of them put out pinkish colored blooms that really stand out against the landscape.  What's so odd about the redbud is that there are no leaves on the tree, just beautiful blooms.

The Cercis Canadensis (Redbud Tree)

I like the color of the flowers.  When the tree puts on leaves, they're big, green heart-shaped leaves. According to Wikipedia, this tree will grow 20 - 30 feet tall with a 30 foot spread, so this tree will just keep on getting prettier.  As I was standing by it, bees were flying flower to flower doing their thing.  That's another sure sign Spring has sprung.

Beautiful Redbud Blooms

Wikipedia also told me that Native Americans ate the flowers raw or boiled and roasted the seeds for food. I may eat one to see what it tastes like, but I'll likely just stick to looking at the flowers as I keep an eye on the cows eating in the side yard, though.