Tuesday, June 26, 2007

What Mother Nature is up to in my yard

No new progress on any quilting projects so far today. I have been working on the cabinet under the kitchen sink, which had to be emptied out yesterday when the dishwasher installers were here. Yuck- not my most immaculate area of the house. Anyway, there had been a leak at some point, and everything had to come out, the caulking around the main water pipe was cracked and dried, and there is a hole in the cabinet floor. Time-consuming to fix, but I am on my way to Wally-World for some of that expanding foam to apply around the pipe.

Meanwhile, got caught up in a little yard work, and was astonished to see a nest of bluebird babies almost ready to fledge in one of my boxes! I had been surprised to see on my fellow fiber blogger Vicki W's post that she had a second batch of bluebirds in her yard. My thinking was, it's too d___ hot for that sort of foolishness in the south! Mine look just like the one in her most recent photo.

I was watering the azaleas and camellias near the woods when out shot a little baby bunny, probably only about five inches long, wondering why he was getting a shower! There was another one near the pond on my street when I walked the dog this morning. It was so inexperienced, it did not even try to run away from large-jawed Maggy. I threw a pebble near it to get it to scamper, but it was in the same spot when we walked back. Maggy is doing better about denying herself a delightful chase when she is on the leash. In her younger days she sent me airborne a few times when she saw a squirrel or a deer.

My front yard is in full sun, and once a plant gets established there, they tend to grow well beyond their expected size. I have a weigela and a viburnum that are about twelve feet tall and ten feet wide, and I need to move all the other stuff in the perennial beds that are being crowded out. Well, that's a job for the cooler fall months.

Here is a lavender and a viburnum that have gone crazy in my front garden beds.

2 comments:

Vicki W said...

I'm with you, I am always surprised to see the bluebirds nest twice. I can't imagine how hot it gets in that box during the day! Uggh! Glad you have some new babies too - guess the Eastern Bluebird is making a strong recovery!

Jeanne Turner McBrayer said...

Oh yes, very glad to find the pile of bluebird babies were not roasted in the box. I see bluebirds all over our neighborhood, sometimes eight on a telephone wire or a tree, so they are doing OK in this neck of the woods.