A Second Look--May 21, 2014

It's been the drama of the birds this week or maybe I should say the confusion of the birds. Or let's try that one more time. It's been the week of my confusion about birds.

The sparrows nest is getting refinements now with pine needles and feathers lining the twig frame. No eggs yet. I'm still torn as to whether or not I should remove the nest and hope for a "better" bird. On the other hand, maybe the sparrows will be happy with their spot and leave other nests alone.

The 4/5 of the bluebird eggs have hatched. However, I'm a little worried because two times yesterday they were "sleeping" when I peeked at them. I think it was probably a protective measure so they wouldn't attract attention to themselves, but they were opening their mouths wide when I looked at them earlier in the week. To tell you the truth, they looked dead to me, but I saw a parent going into feed them later, so I guess that's a good sign.

And the most curious of all were the chickadee chicks. When I checked on them last Friday, I found another nest being built on top of them. It was the same nest material as the first one, so I guessed that it was still a chickadee doing the work. My first guess was that as the chicks were growing, the parents were building up the sides of the nest to protect the chicks. However upon further investigation, I found the nest had been built on top of the babies. I removed the new nest and one of them promptly opened its mouth to be fed. I was gone for a few days, but upon checking the box again yesterday, all of the babies were gone. I hope this means that they fledged. They were certainly not ready on Friday, but things happen fast in the baby bird world. However, whatever was working on the nest before, has been working on it again. I'm going to watch it a little longer to see if it's a sparrow. If it is, there is no doubt that I will clear the nest. However, I'm hoping that it's another chickadee.

If you haven't caught on by now from reading this blog, I like to watch birds, but don't know that much about them. I've learned a lot since we put up a feeder a couple of years ago, but still have a lot to learn. Just ask Aunt Martha, my bird expert. In the meantime, I enjoy watching, learning, and being confused by them. :)

When I'm not preoccupied with the birds, I'm finding new things blooming everyday. I'm hoping soon that most of the trees will be done, and my allergies will improve. We'll see. Presently, the oak are almost done blooming and the wild cherries are just starting.

Update: While doing a little research while writing this, it's possible that the sparrow's nest may be a wren's nest. Did I mention that I still have a lot to learn?

Here are some things I saw this week during a

Second Look.

 

Baby bluebirds. They are a day or two old on the left. Notice the one on the upper right is wrapped around an egg. The picture on the right shows what they looked like five days later.

  

On the left, you can see the new nest being built on top of the old one. On the right, you can see one of the baby chickadees poking its head out after I removed most of the second nest from on top of it.

The sparrow, maybe wren's nest.

More Siberian iris are opening up. However, this is the only bed so far with them blooming.

The first bearded iris has bloomed.

The bees are buzzing around the rhododendron which is in full bloom.

This is the second kind of wild cherry to bloom.

Although their prime blooming is over, all of these flowers are still providing color.

Thankful Sunday--May 18, 2014

I am thankful for a walk along the beach.

Sometimes getting out of your regular environment can be very restoring. I am thankful that Ward and I got a chance to do that yesterday with a walk along the beach.

Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--May 16, 2014

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions. 

This Week's Food Waste

None

Okay, maybe not None, but pretty close. There was a little lettuce that went slimy before it got used and a few almonds that I dropped on the floor at work. If it had been at home, I might have eaten them anyway, but not from my work floor.  However, the squirrels and blue jays really enjoyed them. 

This Week's True Food Confessions

You may have noticed that I haven't done a food post for a couple of weeks. I stopped taking pictures for a while, so with no pictures and no new recipes, I didn't have much to post about. I'd like to say that I didn't have any food pictures because I was preoccupied with taking pictures of all the spring flowers. But that wouldn't be true. I have been distracted by other things and paying attention to our eating hasn't been that high on my list. However, all has not been lost. I've been concentrating on working more vegetables into our dishes as well as serving more leafy greens. Also, we had some fresh asparagus from Uncle Billy--nothing like it! And we grilled our first non nitrate hot dogs. I've been meaning to try them for a year or more and we finally got around to it. They were good and while I wouldn't exactly call them a health food, they're a step up from the last ones we had. We're going to be gone for a few days, and I'm not sure what we'll be eating. However, I am taking along some healthy snacks for the car.

Until next time...

A Second Look--May 14, 2014

It's that time of year. Every time I turn around outside, something has changed. New things are blooming and the grass is growing fast enough that we're going to have to get hay cutting equipment soon if we don't catch up on the mowing. We've had a lot of rain this past week and the humidity and temperatures are rising. In fact, the last couple of days, we've had temperatures in the high eighties.

Also, I saw a fox in the yard recently. This is an unusual occurrence since they are usually out at night when I'm not. In addition, the ground hog holes finally look active with fresh digging around both the front and back entrances. And speaking of seeing new things, I put up a hummingbird feeder and have seen two of them feeding from it. We often get hummingbirds later when the tiger lilies are blooming, but I wanted to see if I could attract them sooner. We'll see if they continue to come. But the best things I saw this week are the chickadee chicks. Baby birds definitely fit the "so ugly, they're cute" idea.

Here are some things I saw this week during 

a Second Look.

The azalea continue to bloom.

The first of the Siberian iris have started to bloom.

I was excited when I found this Jack-in-the Pulpit wildflower.

Another wildflower, the buttercup, is giving a nice show in the fields now.

This is the fox I saw trotting across the yard in the middle of the day.

The lily-of-the-valley are blooming.

Five of the six chickadee eggs hatched. I don't know exactly how old these chicks are but I guess a week or less.

Meanwhile, the bluebird continues to sit on her eggs.

Across the yard, the sparrows are building a nest. Once again, I have not shooed them away as recommended. Maybe they'll leave the other nests alone if they have a good place for their own.

Yesterday, this was a tight little bud. Today the rhododendron had buds opening all over it.

Another Garden Tour

As part of my Mother's Day gift, I took a home garden tour in Georgetown, a famous neighborhood in Washington, DC. Think history, rich people, and senator's homes. That's some of what you'll find there. The tour has a long tradition (86 years) with the local garden club and is their main fund raiser for beautification projects in the area.

The tour definitely took us out of the suburbs and into the city. Streets were crowded, parking was difficult, and everything was more expensive. However once we were situated, we had a good time meandering among the houses. Everything was within a few blocks of each other and the weather was good. It started to rain about 2/3 of the way through, but that wasn't bad either because it was not cold.

Come take a virtual tour with me.

The sidewalks were brick in front of the houses and had small flower beds spaced along them.

 

The front entrances to some of the houses were right on the sidewalk and some of them had a bed/small yard in front.

To get to most of the gardens, we had to go down long alleys between buildings.

Many of the gardens/yards were small and all of them were surrounded by a fence.

Grass was a rare sight because of space limitations in most gardens.

This was the only vegetable garden we saw although we did see herbs planted here and there other places. I think the lack of veggies was for two reasons--shady lots and small spaces. The gardens with this house were large and terraced across three levels.

The houses often seemed to be in a jumble. Many of them were 100-200 years old and had been added onto and modified throughout the years.

This was one of the larger and older houses we visited. All of the residences we saw were currently being lived in.

This modern garden fit perfectly with the modern style architecture of the house it went with. The house was impressive but seemed out of place among the older brick homes.

This dinosaur visited all of the gardens along with a little boy who was touring with his grandfather. The dinosaur often stopped to eat as he as doing in this picture.

While I enjoyed the gardens, my favorite thing of the day was this garden club lady's outfit. I think that's because she was wearing pink cloth gloves. Oh, the fashions of days gone by. Sigh.