22 July 2013 - Rufous and Rude

In April the hummingbird population came back. Yes, they squabble over feeders. There are magnificent chase scenes, clever ruses where hummers sneak in under the guard's eye. Then when the babies are born the females encourage communal feeding. It is all very entertaining.

However in July the Rufous Hummers show up. They are bold and brassy in color and personality. These johnny-come-lately birds show up and take over the feeders. They are aggresive in guarding the feeders, chasing everyone away. This morning I was watching them chase chickadees and house finches out of the tree as well. 

I have to give them points for pretty with all the orange-y and metallic gold flash.
 

But it is surprising how territorial they are. I may need to put out a couple more feeders, especially since I still have babies in nests. 

Today the babies look like this. 

 

21 July 2013 - Backyard nature day

Interesting day today, even though I wasted most of the morning by staying in bed too late. Wasn't sleeping, just lying there letting my brain run around and watching where it was going. Some good places, some bad and some reminders of things I need to do. 

My reveries were interrupted by the doorbell. David had stopped by and I had the gate locked from the inside. I was up, dressed and drinking my first cup in a flash. David made me an adjustable starting jig for drilling holes in the bottom of bottles-- that is a project I'm working on with much help from David. He already made a jig that fits wine bottles, but didn't realize I was using different sizes. How cool is this? 

 



                                                                                                                                                                 Now I can drill holes in beer bottles as well as wine bottles.  So many projects, so little time.    

David also checked out my car. On Friday, it had overheated to the point where I could not touch the rod that holds the hood up. He found nothing wrong, other than I had maybe put a bit too much oil in it. All other fluids were fine. And not only that, the window washer worked perfectly for him. grr. Why is that? I couldn't get it to work. 

We were sitting on the porch discussing the butt-ugly pink color on the ladder, when David noticed my newest acquisitions up on the rock wall. 

There are  three large Russian Sage plants, an arborvite that had been topiaried into the shape of a star and two bougianvillea. When it comes to buying plants I am cheap. Maybe frugal. Maybe even a smart shopper, but mostly cheap. In late July the nurseries start clearing out their stock. I got the sage and bougainvillea for a whopping 75% discount. Unless it is something really special and wonderful, I wait until late to buy. It makes up for the fact I can't ever find anything else I ever want on sale. Full-price Lauri, that's me. 

Anyway, David said, "You know, the sage would look great down on the lower lawn where we dug out all the pfitzers."  

That had not even occurred to me-- I was planning on the front yard, but he was absolutely right.  We went down and got two of them planted. 97 here today. A hot time to be digging up rocks and moving dirt. But they will be perfect down there.  A nice perk to the Russian Sage is that bees love them. 
 
The sage have already been found by honey bees and red-butt bumblebees. The true name is Bombus melanopygus--we had a lot of them last year in the yard and I had to look them up. Mighty cute, aren't they?


After David left, I mowed the lawns and started watering and moving hoses around. Took a hose out to the tomatoes and spent an hour with a little trowel to loosen the soil and make sure everything was getting a good soaking instead of wetting the top half inch of dirt and running off. Pulled a lot of weeds and found the first five ripe tomatoes--little Sweet 100s. And they were sweet. I ate them on the spot. 

My plan for today was to get my August print project done, but I got hijacked by yard work.  Didn't print but did paint. Ladder looks much better in bright red than pink. This is a very old orchard ladder that has been rotting away in the myrtle bed. 

My plan is to use it as yard art, now that it has a protective and bright coat of paint. I thought I could use it as part of a trellis, but considering it is 12 feet high, I'm not sure about that. Currently it is brightening my hammock corner. 

I was sitting in the breezeway considering the sprinklers and saw a bunny run across the front yard. One of the hawks swooped down after him, but he made it safely into Schade's pfitzers. When the hawk flapped up into the maple I realized there were two hawks up there.  Went inside for my camera, but they were gone when I came out. 

I have been watching a hummingbird nest next door on Schade's porch. Here is the mom sitting on the nest from last week. 

She found a lovely spot up on the porch soffit in a mess of electical wire. 

Since I had my camera and no hawks, I wandered over to see what was going on with the hummers. 

But look what I found instead! Babies! Short little beaks, no tails yet. They must be very new.

The mother was quite upset with me and was diving at me, screaming and darting back and forth about three feet over my head. She finally landed on a branch over my head. 

Yesterday when Dave and Holly were here working on the shop, I looked out the window and saw the hawk was sitting on the rack on Holly's car.  Grabbed my camera and by the time I got him in focus he launched into the air just as I clicked. 

I think the hawk babies have fledged and are learning to hunt. I would rather they ate the squirrels and bunnies instead of my birds. 

But still, it is quite a nature preserve I am running here. 

When David and I were moving dirt around to get the sage planted, I noticed that the deer fencing around the vegetable garden was down on one corner. I will bet that it was this guy. He has been in my front yard, and I've seen him in Schade's yard and Allison's as well. His velvet covered antlers look so soft.

Last night when I was turning off all the lights before bed I noticed that the motion detector light in the breezeway was on. This morning one of the trailing sweet potato plants in a pot by the stairs had most of the leaves bitten off--nothing left but little bare stems sticking up.  I need to buy another bottle of deer repel. Rodents in my yard come in all sizes. 


Ended my day by watching the full moon rise over the mountains.

                             

20 July 2013 - Rethinking snails

For years snails have been the bane of my little gardener's heart. I have smashed, baited, crushed and otherwise killed many many of those shelled eating machines. 

Quick segue: when Robin was here in May, we were weeding the front flower bed. Any snails that showed up I merely tossed into the street. You can imagine my shock and surprise when three women joggers stopped in front of the house and one of the women said, "Oh,  look a baby snail! What is it doing in the road?" She picked it up walked into the yard and set it next to a rock surrounded by long grass. "You'll be safe here," she said. Then they continued jogging up the hill. 

Fast forward a couple weeks. I was on the porch watering the pots and noticed a snail on a planter working his way over a corner. 

 

All I could think of while watching him very slowly making his way over the corner was A.A. Milne's poem: 

The Four Friends

Ernest was an elephant, a great big fellow,
Leonard was a lion with a six foot tail,
George was a goat, and his beard was yellow,
And James was a very small snail.

Leonard had a stall, and a great big strong one,
Earnest had a manger, and its walls were thick,
George found a pen, but I think it was the wrong one,
And James sat down on a brick

Earnest started trumpeting, and cracked his manger,
Leonard started roaring, and shivered his stall,
James gave a huffle of a snail in danger
And nobody heard him at all.

Earnest started trumpeting and raised such a rumpus,
Leonard started roaring and trying to kick,
James went on a journey with the goat's new compass
And he reached the end of his brick.

Ernest was an elephant and very well intentioned,
Leonard was a lion with a brave new tail,
George was a goat, as I think I have mentioned,
but James was only a snail.

I sat crouched over my heels, hose in hand and watched as he reached the end of his brick. It took quite some time. We have had very few snails this year, probably because of the overly early hot spell. 

Two days later, I was walking across the front lawn and nearly stepped on this guy making his way through the grass. Once again I stopped to watch. I got a little more up close and personal with this one. I hadn't really given it much thought before, but watching (and annoying) this snail made me realize that the eye stalks are completely retractable.  Something like pulling off a pair of latex gloves and having the fingers being completely inside out. Makes you wonder what they see when their eyes are inside. His eyes were blue.

Here I annoyed him and he retracted his eyestalks and his olfactory tentacles. He looks like an octopus.

 After a minute or two he decided to see if it was safe and stuck his eye stalk out just the tiniest bit.

He takes a good look around, and extends both eyestalks then starts pushing out the olfactory tentacles. It was a pretty interesting morning.

I still don't like them eating their way through my yard, but I may rethink my immediate reflex to stomp them flat. 



 

6 July 2013 - West of Here

Today I decided to go find Timpie Springs, a waterfowl management area on the west side of the Great Salt Lake. Because we have been having afternoon pop-up thunderstorms, I checked the weather map before I left.  Yep. The area I was looking for was covered with rain. However, looking at the animation and wind speeds I figured by the time I got there, the rain would be long gone.  

My first surprise as I drove around the south end of the lake is that the surrounding wetlands were totally dry. All the little inlets and wading areas were reduced to baked bare ground. We have been having the afternoon isolated showers everyday for a week. I would have thought it would have been enough rain to keep water in these flat areas. Huh. Result?  No birds where I expected to see lots of birds.  

Looking back east across the valley were the Wasatch about to get rain.

As I approached the south end of the Great Salt Lake, I could see bolt after bolt of cloud to ground lightning right where I was headed.  There was a lot of cloud to cloud lightning as well.  This provided some spectacular views. 

 My ultimate destination was about 40 miles on the west side of these mountains. Oh boy. 

Yes, I ran into rain. Torrential rain. This stretch of I-80 has a speed limit of 75.  Everyone was driving faster than that.  I finally pulled off as far over as I could get and let all the crazies speed through the rain. It was coming down so hard I could not see where the road was, much less the markings.  After five minutes it let up enough to make driving safe again. 

Discovered I had miscalculated the distance--it was way west of Tooele,  west of Grantsville, and instead of turning left onto Skull Valley Road, headed north on Rowley. Took me quite a while to find the dirt road in, but I figured it out and the rain had quit when I arrived. 

Birds? Quite a disappointment.  Very few to be seen. However, the area is huge with dikes through it.  A bicycle would have been nice to navigate the dikes. No motor vehicles allowed. 

 Above,  you are looking over the wetlands to Stansbury Island. 
 

I saw Eared Grebes, White-faced Ibises, Least Terns, Cliff Swallows, Black-Necked Stilts, Avocets, California Gulls and of course some small brown birds I have yet to identify.



 On my way home, had to pull over for a shot of this local landmark called Lone Rock.


It was a day filled with great skyscapes.

4 July 2013 - Happy Birthday to the Red White and Blue

I was thinking a little red, white and blue would be in order today. 

Jack always hung the flag out on holidays. So my first thought was to hang Jack's flag, which was given to me "with thanks from a grateful nation in honor of his service."  I knew it was big, but it is nearly three times bigger than the flag we normally fly. But a few more nails and hooks later, it is up in honor of Jack and the 4th of July. 

Here are a few pieces from the Neon Museum and Boneyard in the proper patriotic colors. 

Keeping with the theme, just a few more reds, whites and blues.