Signs of spring in Wyoming are different than they are in the South...

So many of my fellow bloggers are posting beautiful photos of spring as of late.

Like this one from Brenda at Cozy Little House. She has the most wonderful yard and flowers. (I am green with envy... pardon the pun!)

Cozy Little House

And this big, bunch of gorgeous is from Rhondi at Rose-Colored Glasses...

Rose-Colored Glasses

This flowering tree from Denise at Den's Daily Life makes me swoon...

Den's Daily Life

These signs of spring make my heart sing! But spring is very different here in Wyoming.

We only have a hint of green grass...

Most everything is still brown. There are certainly no flowers to be found and the trees still don't have leaves.

There is a leaky water pipe underground right here so this is always the first place I see green. I start checking in January!

Do you see the greenish hue? I know it's a bit of a stretch...

But I can tell that spring is in the air whenever I have to dig out this yellow, plastic funnel. (It kind of resembles a daffodil, don't you think? Okay, another stretch...)

And this plastic measuring cup...

And my paint-can opener...

Which is what I use to get this...

Onto this...

Spring means a trip to the feed store for 50-lbs of powdered milk...

So we can make four of these every day...

Because we have one of these to feed...

We don't officially start calving until April 1 but there have been three or four "accidents" running around for a few weeks now. You can see one of them here...

Cowboy found this little girl without a mother about three weeks ago. That means we have to bottle feed her until September, or so. (Please pardon my shoes. I had to hold the bottle between my knees in order to take the picture.)

I named her Smidgeon because she's just a tiny thing and she has a smidgeon of white on her back leg.

She's difficult to photograph because as soon as she sees me, she starts licking her lips and runs toward me. When she trots after she's eaten, I can hear the milk sloshing around in her belly. Here she comes...

She is the hungriest, most slobbery calf I've ever raised. And she squirts milk everywhere when she eats. See it on her face?

We call orphaned babies "bums." This is our first bum calf of 2010. I would like to tell you that I hope it's our only one but that would be a lie. You see, one baby calf gets lonesome all by itself. They are herd animals and need a friend. Dogs just won't do!

This red calf is, Elmo, one of our 2009 bum calves. He lived in the house for a few days during two blizzards last March.

When Elmo met his new friend Zoe, his face literally lit up. He was overcome with joy. He went through the most amazing transformation right before our eyes. He was the happiest baby bull ever.

Elmo loved to suck on Zoe's ear... which she did not appreciate. They were named after the Muppets.

It's hard to believe this is the same pen in which I photographed Smidgeon in today. I can't wait until we have green grass again. Isn't it lovely?


This little fellow was my first bum calf, Brinkley. I named him that because he was born on the day David Brinkley passed away. I think it must have been in 2002 or 2003.

Brinkley didn't have another calf for a friend but he had four sheep (which were also bums a year earlier) to keep him company. He thought he was a sheep, I think.

This is my bum sheep, Ivy McIvy. I swear, she was so proud to be wearing these clothes that she posed for the camera. (Do you think it's because they're wool? I know, yet another stretch...)

This is Ivy's cousin, Springstein. She didn't appreciate the whole clothing thing as much as her counterpart but she was a good sport. I got Spring and Ivy when they were two-days old. They are registered Targhees.

The big boy on the left is Pippy and next to him, with the short tail is his twin, Phyllis Diller. They were raised for six weeks by the ewe so they never became as friendly as Spring and Ivy.

I am sad to report that precious Pip was killed in a spring snowstorm.

The three ewes now live with a herd of sheep. Phyllis has blended in and I no longer recognize her. But Ivy and Spring will still come if you call out, "babies." Cowboy's mother sometimes takes them Tootsie Rolls.

Although I'm not celebrating spring like my Southern sisters, it's spring just the same.

Honestly, I'd think I'd prefer to skip spring... which is essentially winter... and jump straight to summer... which is essentially spring... at least in Wyoming.