Goldfinch

The birds that regularly come to my bird feeder are sparrows (little brown birds) and an occasional house wren. The sparrows kick the sunflower seeds out of the feeder, which the quail delight in scratching around in. This also causes some of the seeds to be "planted" and the consequently grow into lovely gold sunflowers.

















We have just recently been visited by a pair of Goldfinch. Jerry noticed the first one a couple of days ago. Pretty amazing since he claims to be colorblind and these little birds blend in so beautifully with the golden sunflowers. Today I was glancing out the window and watched as these two birds hopped from sunflower to sunflower snacking away. This is a great show and will definitely make sure they have sunflowers to feed on next year.

We have had Flickers when I have the suet blocks out in the winter, which attract Magpies. A Peregrine Falcon visited one winter. I think he was looking for the mice that were feeding on the scattered bird food. Curiously, the Robins don't come around. Guess they prefer worms. Starlings horn in but can't ride the bird feeder. And Jerry wants to count the turkeys that came into the lawn of the condo even though they didn't make it into our enclosure.

it's a jungle out there

It's been eight weeks since I was last able to do anything in my small garden.
When I left the plants were tidy and orderly. The weeds were under control. The sprinkler system was set (set it and forget it comes to mind). We had a late spring so things were growing at a reduced rate.
Now comes 8 weeks later. Some of my flowers have had their blooming season and now are screaming at me to release the seed pods from their stems. The volunteer sunflowers (from the bird feeder) have taken over. There are some plants under there but they are being choked out.










The clematis is a mass of purple. Great to see them from the other side of the fence. The cheerful yellow of the sunflowers and the exuberant purple of the clematis poking over the top of the plane boring fence.
















My tomato actually has a couple of fruit. But it is so small... I really need to get out there and fertilize. It would probably help the pepper and cucumbers to be fed too.

















One of the two Bat plants I got from a nursery in Bloomington, IL is growing. I think the other one didn't get any water. Hard to monitor that stuff from the patio door.



And there is the lovely deep red day lily. I did have a purple poppy bloom for me but before I could get a picture of it, it faded. I'm letting the seeds do what they do best and maybe next year I'll have more.

July 10

Got the cast off yesterday. All my dreams of being able to "walk" out of the office in my shinny new boot ... didn't happen. I climbed back on my scooter and wheeled my way back to the car. This healing bit is harder than I expected. Things went well, surgically and healing wise, I just underestimated the amount of atrophy that went on in those six weeks.
When the nurse removed my cast I was intrigued with the amount of dead skin. It was like a pealing sunburn without the pain. I love to peal skin. Flakes for a day now. Should be pretty much done. Oh, wait, there are some more loose bits. lol
My first step on my left foot jarred me into reality. Now I can hobble around the apartment with a crutch under my right arm and very carefully shift my weight onto my left leg. It is getting better, don't get me wrong. I am glad I did it and know that I just have to be patient.
On a brighter note, I can sit now with my foot on the floor for longer periods of time. I've started physical therapy on the foot. And I've been cleared to go back to the pool. Yeah!!!

July 3

Only 6 more days in this cast (I hope). Won't know for sure until Dr. takes an x-ray to see how things are healing. I am really getting tired on not being able to walk (I even dream of walking again).
While I have been house bound, well I'm not really. I can go down the one step to our side walk and the one curb step out to the car. I have not been able to maneuver the two steps that go down to my patio, hence my back yard. During these 6 weeks my how the flowers have grown and of course the weeds too. My purple daisy has bloomed and needs to be trimmed. The white daisy is almost finished. The birds have planted several sunflowers which are higher than the fence and blooming (to the delight of the honey bees). 7The clematis is having a great time with wonderful splashes of purple. I have one or two (not sure, there were two this spring) purple poppies. One of them bloomed and before I could get a picture of it, it was gone. I'll let that go to seed and hope for more next year. I put my amaryllis out (after drying it up quite thoroughly) and it is about to burst forth in bloom. Never had before, been able to get one to bloom a second time. What I can see of the cucumber and tomato does not look promising. Maybe they need food.
Happy Fourth. Have a safe weekend. We will be serving hotdogs and hamburgers (not from the grill as we don't have one) for my kids. It's a way for us to get together and the food prep isn't that much of a strain on me.