Baby Bluebird Rescue x 2

Saturday, July 5th

The previously mentioned babies saw their first snake! We suspect it's the previously photographed rat snake because we first saw it near the same location. Within the hour we were very excited to see it again, this time slithering along the backyard. Luckily, I am no longer using my Palm to shoot photos so as you'll see these are much better! Since I was mostly preoccupied with the twins, my son Simon had the presence of mind to shoot some fabulous snake shots.

We were a little slow to comprehend why we were so lucky to see this brazen fellow, but when he started heading toward the steadily chirping baby bluebirds we caught on! He was hungry.

We tried to stand in his path, hoping he would veer, but with no success. He made it to the tree and began climbing ! Knowing he wasn't poisonous, wasn't comfort enough to convince any of us to touch him at first. Using sticks we gently pushed him down and then tried moving him with the baby pool.

He escaped and headed back to the tree. My Dad got into the act and was brave enough to pick him up by the tail! He quickly doubled back on him though and was, ummm, quickly put back on the ground. I had put down my human baby and picked up the camera by this time, but the only shot I got of my Dad, the snake wrangler, was of his butt; I'll spare you that one. Finally, he was deposited in the woods and what we hoped was far enough away from the bluebird babies! They were safe!

Saturday, July 12th

I was enjoying my favorite view yesterday afternoon, looking down from my bedroom window, when I saw baby bluebirds diving out of their home like paratroopers from a plane. It was very exciting until I noticed that one of the birds had landed in the baby pool immediately below. Simon and I rushed outside to see if help was needed and found that a second baby bird had also landed in the pool. The parents were flying anxiously above, chirping furiously, but the babies were motionless,

one on the dry side,

the other on the wet.

The wet one was easy to scoop out using a frisbee. We deposited him on the grass

and the father found him quickly.

He hopped across the yard, finally taking flight.

He landed on the slide and slid right down to the bottom! I laughed out loud, but unfortunately didn't snap a picture. While all of this was going on the 2nd baby was still unmoving in the pool. Simon managed to get him out; I was too nervous to watch how he did it. neither mother nor father found this one right away. We didn't have to worry though, this little fellow was an expert in disguise.

Can you spot him in the grass?

Careful now, don't hurt his feelings, he's convinced he's invisible!

As we watched from afar he finally stuck his head up and his father found him! The family was reunited and hanging out in our woods!

Two final notes:

The offending pool is now empty and upside down so it can't catch anything else!

The snake appeared again today by the cutting garden. He seemed a little nervous around us this time and quickly headed back to the woods. Poor guy, I guess he doesn't know that with the bluebirds safe our interest in him is purely scientific!

Black Rat Snake

Saturday morning Mike and I were heading up the deck stairs when I saw this...

A gorgeous black snake had come from the drainage hole under the porch to enjoy the sun! His head rested on the trunk of the lilac and as we watched he began to climb higher.

We spent about half an hour observing him until he returned to his hidy hole. Here's one last shot of his head as he descended.

Snakes all over must have come out to celebrate the holiday; my parents had one in their back yard and their neighbors had two.

Chicks and Seeds

We have babies! The bluebird babies in the bluebird house are very noisy and their parents are very busy flying back and forth to feed them. I don't begrudge a single worm they take from the garden for their hungry hatchlings. Next to the porch, on the gutter, we have four finch babies. These chicks are very quiet, and very cute! We have a great view of them; looking around inquistively as they wait for their parents, mouths wide open as they hope its their turn to eat. If you look to the left in the picture you can see a little head looking back at me through the screen. Their parents aren't as busy as the bluebird ones and that's partly our fault. If we're on the porch and move when they're on their way in they do a quick about face and head to the safety of a tree.

This was a big planting weekend in the kitchen garden. I put in the tomatoes and lots of seeds. Lettuce, carrots, spinach, corn, pole beans, borage, basil and dill. Some I'm afraid I've put in too late for the hot weather we've been experiencing (lettuce, spinach); some too early if we experience one more frost (corn, tomatoes.)

The asparagus is doing great! Some of it is almost as tall as the fence already (4 ft tall!) Pretty impressive for a 3 week old! I planted them in a trench as I was told, but was confused about when to backfill. Most of what I read said you do it over the developing fern, but I didn't exactly have ferns at first, I had asparagus spears that were shooting straight up and then developing thin little leaves. Was that what I should be backfilling? Finally, I confirmed that yes, that was it. Hopefully, that's right.

Friday night, Simon and I spent some time watching the snake; seeing him swim is really cool! As you can see, I got a new picture. He was very entertaining, much more so than the fish. They were friendly at first, but then our part Labrador dog who thinks the pond is his playground, scared them into a seemingly permanant hiding. If they don't start coming out soon, we may decide to keep the snake no matter how big he gets!

Saturday, we woke up to find frog eggs in the pond! Thank God! While I've been very supportive of their efforts to find love, they're so noisy about it. We tried to have the patio door open the night they finally found it, but we couldn't hear the TV over their song.

Mike and I finally moved that boxwood! He dug out the yucca that was on the corner of our front bed and just didn't fit with the plantings of boxwood and holly shrubs. Digging out the boxwood wasn't too bad. I think Paul James' trick worked for getting the roots adjusted to rootball size, but getting under the shrub was still hard. Lifting it was the worst though; it took both of us to lift it into the wheelbarrow. Hopefully, it will be happy in its new home. It sure looks great there! No picture I'm afraid...the camera died.

The Results of a Week Off...

They said it was going to rain today, but when I woke up this morning it was quiet outside. I had just decided to get up and head out when the rain began. There was a lull earlier this morning so I put on my gardening clothes and the minute I stepped out of my bathroom, the rain began again. Some things just aren't meant to be...

Asparagus Anyone?
I should have plenty to share in three years! Ready or not, the kitchen garden now has 3 asparagus beds! Yes, we do really like asparagus, but I ordered way too many plants and then started to worry that the soil wasn't rich enough or that the deer would eat half the plants and then I wouldn't have enough. I did some research and you can move asparagus plants, as long as you don't try to harvest from them right away, so I decided to go ahead and plant in as much of the Kitchen Garden space I felt I could spare for a year or two. This way, if my fears come true, I can fill in the one bed I had hoped to have with some of the plants from the extra beds. Hopefully, I'll just have extra plants to share with friends next year!

A colleague of mine once described some bamboo creeping into her yard from her neighbor's as penile. It seems an appropriate description of the newly planted asparagus too.

The Pond
Okay, so I redid the waterfall yet again, but this time through necessity! The first picture is before, the 2nd after. We had major problems with the pond this winter. Even though it wasn't that cold temperature wise, the pond froze over with thick ice, all three of our koi died, some of the concrete cracked, ice slugs blocked up the tubing and twice, the tubing broke due to freezing. My Dad, in Stafford, has had a pond for probably twenty years and never had problems like this; it has to be our proximity to the river! Next year we'll have to get a heater.

After the fish died, we didn't rush to fix the waterfall for the 2nd time so we just did it last weekend. We raised it several inches so that we could also fill the pond higher, I adjusted one side where the concrete had cracked so that it too was higher and, using some leftover fieldstone, finally built up the back so that the filter was completely covered, but by moving a rock or two we still had easy access. I like the way the back looks so much that I can't help but wonder how great it would be if the front looked the same way...

It turns out Shoeless Joe was right, if you build it they will come. You know last year we were inundated with frog and toad tadpoles, but what I never got around to blogging was our bullfrog tadpoles! These take two years to come to maturity and luckily they survived the winter! We've also seen some kind of mollusk, have a variety of water bugs and are also currently home to a young water snake! We think it's a Blotched Water Snake, you can see my picture here, he's hiding in the iris leaves, and a picture where you can actually see what one looks like from the Herp Journal on the Internet. He will have to be moved before he gets large enough to eat our bullfrog tadpoles or brand new koi. We're not sure how we'll do that, but we figured we'd start him out in the creek below our house and then take him to the river if he finds his way back.

The Woods
A few weekends ago, I used the brushcutter to thin out the smaller stuff in the woods on one side of the back of the house. This week, my Dad cut down some of the smaller trees that I couldn't get with a brushcutter. Now more light can come in and the beautiful hollies and dogwoods can come into their own. I also have space to plant some native trees, shrubs and plants.

Compost
My son was assigned the hateful duty of removing the pachysandra from the driveway bed last summer. Unfortunately, once the compost bin was full much of what he pulled up was dumped outside, partly on the path. It is now, like most of the stuff in the bin, mostly ready to use, but still had some pockets of pachysandra here and there. I bought some stiff, mesh netting, stapled it to some stakes and created a compost sieve. Once I was done, the mesh wasn't wide enough to span the wheelbarrow or garden gate so I needed another piece. Then the gap between the two pieces was a problem and meant that un-sifted compost was falling through. One morning I spent about an hour weaving a piece of wire to sew the two pieces of mesh together. It now works like a charm and the compost is beautiful!

The trickiest part to using it now is to watch for skinks and earthworms scooped up with the compost. I have to shake the compost so that the usable stuff falls into the wheelbarrow and that requires an action similar to using a cheese grater. Not a pleasant way to go, but by going slowly and watching carefully, I think I'm saving everyone. There's still more to get, but so far the finished compost has been added to the cutting and vegetable gardens.