Garden Dreams and Dirty Nails: Around and Around and Around I Go!

That's what I've been doing the last week and a half, going around and around the garden to all the lovely strawberry plants, picking strawberries every morning! A very bountiful Spring of fruit, even with competition from the squirrels, 4 regulars, and chippies, at least 3 in the yard now! So I've made jam, and of course we have them for breakfast, and in salads, and best of all delicious margaritas!
It doesn't look like the cherry tree will be as bountiful this Summer, and our Snow sweet apple tree lost the one remaining apple, but I think the tree limbs need to get a bit bigger to support the large apples it produces. Not sure what is happening with the cherry tree, could be that the late frost we had took out a lot of the fruit. I still have one bag from last year in the freezer, it will be even more appreciated now!
The peas are doing ok, a steady handful every day, nothing spectacular but good in wraps! I noticed the bean seeds collected from last year appear to be doing better than the newly purchased seeds. The hyacinth beans, and pole beans took off quickly and are halfway up the fence already! The cucumbers are slow, but steady.
It seems to be a strange year, some plants are way ahead of schedule by 2-3 weeks, others are more on schedule. It is a mystery to me, but interesting to observe with our ever changing climate. One thing that doesn't change is the speed of summer, slow down please!!
The bees are really back in full force, lovely to see, but we've only had one Monarch butterfly sighting in the yard! Yikes! I know there was a good population in Mexico, maybe they've found a Milkweed paradise somewhere else, still hoping to see more and maybe collect some eggs again this summer!
I finally got my mailbox area spruced up, minus a wheel barrel full of rocks, not surprised really that was the case, but I'm done with rocks! Oh, no, I'm not. I still have a few more rock circles to take out, or maybe... just dump the mulch on top. We had some serious Ash tree roots to deal with in planting around the mailbox. I was able to get one large Huechera (coral bell) plant in, and several small huechera, from the garden, along with some daisies. Better than it was!
Unfortunately, my arm tingling is getting worse, I'm just blaming it on the rocks, and the digging, toting of water, wheel barrels, pulling of weeds, picking of strawberries, pruning...but it all looks fabulous and the bees, butterflies, and birds are here! So are the pics...