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The other night there were EIGHT raccoons in the yard at around midnight or so. They were all over my bird feeders, climbing on my pots and plants and generally making a nuisance of themselves. I chased them off several times, but the little critters would just go into the shadows and wait til I went into the house and then they'd come right back.
So now I'm not feeding the birds for a while. And I guess that might work because my daytime visiting raccoon just showed up, he checked out the entire yard and then left cause there's nothing there for him. Yippee! But my poor birdies are confused. They will be fine though - it won't hurt them in the least for my feeders to be empty for a little while. Especially at this time of year - there's plenty of natural food sources for them.
Last night my sweet hubby filled all my hummingbird feeders for me - he is so sweet. Then when I went to put the extra nectar away in the refrigerator, I spilled it and it went all over the entire insie of the refrigerator. So then we had to clean the entire 'fridge at 10:00 o'clock at night. And he helped me even though it was entirely my fault. I truly love that man,he is so good to me.
I'm trying not to notice that the garden is winding down. But yesterday at Walmart they had all the fall mums on display. They were pretty, but I'm just not ready for fall yet.
Last weekend, my friend, Sharon, who lives in Oklahoma City, came down for a visit with her husband. She brought me a gift: all the planters I gave her when we both lived in Washington State. So those planters traveled from me to her in Washington, then she took them with her when she moved to OKC and then she brought them back to me in Texas - those things have moved around. But I was really glad o get them. I want to plant some crape myrtles and I want really big pots for them as I don't want to plant them in the ground since this isn't my house.
Then my other friend, Ann, gave me some really nice gardening gloves. I told her I don't wear gloves when I garden, so I guess she thought I needed some. They are really pretty, but I just can't wear gloves to garden. I may start out wearing them, but pretty soon they come off and I'm digging in the dirt bare handed. There's just something about it. She told me I need to wear them to protect my nails and cuticles - it's a little late for that - I'm 59 years old and have never been able to wear gloves, so it's a little late to try to change now! I think the damage is already done!
I made it back home from my little trip around the state of Texas and aunt and friend have gone back home also. What a fun time we had! Hubby managed to keep all my plants watered and didn't kill anything so I was very happy about that - I had left him step-by-step written instructions. He even kept my birdfeeders filled up for the birds. He's so sweet.
We had another one of those awful storms blow through here last night. One of our neighbors lost a tree - fortunately it only fell on their driveway and not on their house. I was really worried about all these 14 pecan trees in our yard, but we only lost branches, no trees. Thank goodness. I asked my sister-in-law and her daughter and granddaughter today if this is usual weather for this time of year in NE Texas - meaning these storm blowing in one after another - then a few days of really nice wonderful weather then another storm then nice weather. They said that yes, April and May are like this and then come June it's going to be hot, hot, hot just like that. I can tell it is going to take some time to adjust to this kind of weather.
A lot of my plants really took a beating in the storm from yesterday. The roses especially. There were five rose bushes here when I moved in. They were in sad shape - very neglected. I've nurtured them and pruned them and fed them and they were coming along nicely. It has been fun watching them come to life and seeing what they are. There is one beautiful yellow one; a deep dark red one; a beautiful coral one; one that I think is Double Delight (I'm pretty sure it is) and then one that hasn't bloomed yet. I'm anxious to see what color it is - I'm hoping for a white one.
Because I feed birds on all four sides of my house - I have volunteer sunflowers popping up all over. Whenever you buy sunflower seeds or read in gardening books they say sunflowers don't transplant well, but I can't stand to waste all those little plants, so I transplant them to better locations all the time (before hubby weedwhacks them or mows them down). Sometimes I have sunflowers growing in the strangest places. I like it though.
Bird activity has been absolutely wonderful for the last few days. Spring migration in Texas has to be some of the best birding in the entire country. A lot of birds fly through here on their way from Mexico and Central and South America on their way to their nesting sites further North. It is so cool. I've seen several birds that I've never seen before - it's so exciting!
And we have babies! We have baby bluebirds and baby wrens - 4 baby wrens - they are so cute. And the bluebirds are already building another nest; I think they are going to have another brood. That is so neat.
oh, and I finally got that book on Texas wildflowers while on my trip. I saw so many flowers that I couldn't identify I just finally had to have a book. I love it! It's wonderful.
Today was only a birdwatching day for me - not feeling up to any gardening, although it was a very nice day today. Sometimes I just like to make a note of what birds I am seeing in my garden. This is what I saw today:
I also saw a new bird for me - an Eastern Kingbird - I have never seen one of those before, so that was pretty exciting. He didn't actually come into my yard or come to the feeders; he's an insect eater, not a seed eater and was sitting on a fence and snapping up insects from the pasture.
I recently had hubby put up a new post-style plant stand for me right next to the bird bath. I put two potted vincas on it. I know the birds don't care if there are flowers there or not, but I like it and they like the new perch. They land on the top of the post, check the situation out and then fly down to the birdbath. It's kind of cute. I also have a couple of potted azaelas sitting beneath the birdbath. The silly little wren likes to take his bath in the saucer that catches the water beneath the planter. It's very comical.
Today when the hummingbird came to the feeder, he took one sip and flew away. That's my clue that it needed to be changed. Sugar water can turn pretty quickly when the weather is warm like it has been here. So I took down all the hummer feeders and put in fresh sugar water. In the meantime, the little hummer went to the irises that are blooming under the pecan tree for his nectar. I sure wish I had gotten a picture of that. It was so cute.
Today I went to the Washington Park Jonquil Festival in Arkansas with my friend Ann and her three adorable nieces. It was not quite what I expected. True, there were lots of jonquils, but most were past their prime and were not the focus of the festival anyway. It was mostly an arts and crafts fair. But that's okay, it was fun - I saw a lot of fun things and I bought a another bird feeder which I need like another hole in the head. But this is a suet log - and I've wanted one of those for a long, long time. It's a log with plugs drilled into it that you fill with suet, hang from a tree and wait for the birds and it came with a supply of suet, too. I hung it up right away when I got home. No takers yet, but birds are always a little leery of something new, so it may take them a few days. Anyway, I just love it!
There was another feeder there that I wanted also, but like I said, I don't need another feeder, but it was sooooooo cute and so GREEN (recycled). They had taken old tires, cut them into the shape of a sunflower, put screen in the center where the hole is attached a couple of chains and viola! a sunflower bird feeder - so cute - so original. I wish I'd thought to take a picture, but of course I didn't. And I don't know why I didn't buy one because I absolutely loved it and he was doing the most business of any of the vendors there. Very brisk business. And he traveled all the way from Branson, MO, too.
What a drastic change in the weather (again)!. Yesterday's high was only 35 degrees and today's high only 40. Too cold for me outside - I just worked with my seedlings indoors. I did go out and fill my bird feeders today in between rain showers. They were pretty empty; the birds were happy that I did that. It's supposed to stop raining and start warming up again after today - I have a few things to plant, so I hope so. The rain and wind have really done a number on my daffy's and hyacinths. They were standing up so tall and pretty, now they are just too heavy to stand up straight. Hopefully when they dry out, they'll perk back up.
I'm not sure I've gotten the hang of this blogging thing yet. I've written several entries, but they don't seem to show up here. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or if it's just the program. I've seen oher blogs where they mention similar problems and usually I'm pretty computer literate, so not sure what the problem is. Anyway, I'll give it one more go . . . .
Went to the Texarkana Home and Garden Show today. Texarkana is a SMALL town and it was a SMALL show held at the fairgrounds. Although the title said Home and GARDEN show, it really was a home show and very little Garden. Since we are renting right now until we decide if we want to stay in Texas, I really wasn't interested in all the security systems, home equity loans, mortgages, carpet cleaning, remodeling, etc. So I was a tad bit disappointed. But I did find out about some local nurseries and I will plan to visit them in the near future.
The weather has taken a drastic turn - it was over 80 degrees both yesterday and today. Lows in the 40's at night. Hard to believe that just last week we had a hard enough frost to solidly feeze the water in all my birdbaths and to damage the hydrangea that I just bought. It's not dead, but definitely damaged. I had to prune it back quite a bit. Live and learn - I guess.
Back home in Seattle they are getting SNOW today that's what my friends there are telling me. And here I am getting my beds ready for planting. What a difference 2300 miles makes! LOL!
Oh, the bluebirds have taken up residence in one of the bluebird houses. They started building a nest yesterday. And today after the homeshow I walked the footpath around the lake at the fairgrounds. I saw two mallards courting two females - very funny and then a male mockingbird courting a female. And he was very, very full of himself. Strutting around and puffing up his chest and fluffing up his feathers. It was really comical. I took a ton of pictures, but I haven't figured out how to post them on here yet . . . next time maybe or maybe this time. My back yard.
Another frost and the hydrangea I bought the other day bit the dust. It's not dead, but it definitely has frost damage. It will survive, but will not flower this year since hydrangea flowers on last years wood and I'm going to have to do some pruning to cut off all the damage. I know better than to leave nursery grown plants outdoors when there's danger of a frost - I just wasn't thinking. But I'll try to save it. I brought all the bedding plants in, but I just didn't think about the hydrangea. Lesson learned I guess.
A friend of mine gave me a whimsical bird feeder in the shape of a southern style porch swing. It's painted bright pink. Everyone knows I am an avid bird watcher/bird feeder. I have 23 birdfeeders in the yard right now and that's BEFORE I put out all the hummingbird feeders. I also have bird houses and I just put up two new blue bird houses. No activity there yet, but there are two wrens who are building a nest in a decorative bird house I have mounted inside the carport. I've never had any birds build a nest in this birdhouse before - it's kind of cute. These two wrens have been sheltering there all winter and now they are building a nest. The only problem with that is that it's right outside the carport door and they tend to dive at us when we go in and out that door!
I have a basket of pecans sitting in the yard left over from last fall. I'm trying to entice the squirrels to "come and get 'em." I miss my squirrels from my Seattle backyard. I had 12 regulars there and I enjoyed their antics and their attempts to get into the birdfeeders. It was so comical. The squirrels are very different here. They are bigger and colored differently. I guess these are fox squirrels and I had Eastern Gray squirrels in Seattle. Every once in a while I see a familiar gray squirrel here, but not often.
The other night as I sat by the living room window reading, a possum ambled by my window - I could have reached out and touched him he was so close to me. I can't figure out how he got in here. I am surrounded by a cow pasture on three sides and my yard is completely fenced in. But maybe he was lured by the pecans. I know that in the morning, something ha been eating the pecans, there was a neat little pile of pecan shells next to the basket when I checked it the next day.
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