flyfisher51's Blog

We have had a busy week and weekend. The only gardening done was to trim hedges on Saturday in preparation of pressure washing the house this weekend. The shaded area of the siding is green with algie or whatever grows on siding. I just use water under pressure and that works.

The vegitable garden is back to producing.I picked two zucchini and have four more growing. I have at least four winter squash growing around the garden. I have one on the fence, one in a cedar tree and two in the forsithia bush. I have a few tomatoes, not many.

I had a Hummingbird trapped in the ceiling of the shade tent I put on the deck this year. It is a 10 by 10 canopy and the bird was trying to get out at the top and would not drop to the edge to escape. I used a mesh  paddle for straining pool water and a wire food cover to capture it and move it to the edge. It flattened itself against the paddle, I covered it and let it go, away from the tent. I didn't take pictures because I didn't want to traumatize it any more than it already was. It was a female or a baby as it had a white throat. The boy Cardinal looks like a punk rocker. He is still half brown with a red breast , some red in his wings and tail, and a skimpy red crest on a brown head. He is almost as fun to watch as the young House Finches. Where most of the birds perch for an instant, grab some seed and move to cover, the young finches are staying on the perch and in between mouthfuls they look at the scenery. Saw a baby Goldfinch with its' mother today.

Our big dilemma this week is the apple tree. It is struggling with the cedar-apple rust as the crabapple was. The apple tree was established before the cedars were planted behind us so it has not been damaged as the crabapple was. The disease affects how the fruit looks as well as killing some leaves.  The way the tree is in the yard it is causing erosion of soil below it. It is also a deer magnet. The ground under the tree was covered in droppings until all the fruit on the bottom was eaten. It is keeping sunlight from our Douglas Pine and our Scotch Pine. Our tree guy suggested we get rid of it. This is a tough decision as I like the tree for the squirrels and birds to feed at but don't want any of the other problems. Both the apple tree and the cedars predate our buying the house 17 years ago. We have been pruning the apple tree to keep it producing, but I have only picked one good apple in the last three years.

Oh well.......Hope eveyone has a good week.