Sunday, June 24, 2007

Around the backyard

I took a walk around the backyard with the camera yesterday to see how things are coming along.

A robin has built a nest in the tamarack, just above the feeder. She used some plastic twine I had out there on the badminton net to make herself a nice home, which makes me feel like I helped. Here's a shot of Mama R, relaxing in her new home:

I don't think we have eggs yet, but I've seen someone I presume to be Mr. R watching over Mama R, so maybe we'll have eggs soon! I also saw an oriole making back-and-forth trips out beyond the marsh and the woods in front of the house. I'm sure there's at least one nesting pair up there.

Several others have made their homes for the season around the yard as well--on the side of the house:

and under the yew tree:


The marsh has greened up beautifully:

We're getting a nice stand of cattails right by the back fence, so I'm hoping for some good ops here:

I snapped this photo of a song sparrow and a female red-winged blackbird having a discussion:


The garden is bursting with green:

and the pears are about the size of a half-dollar coin:


I was hoping the honeysuckle would attract some hummingbirds, but so far I haven't seen even one. But the flowers scent the entire backyard:

Some unknown plants have come up--nature fans, give me a hand:



Yesterday, we shopped at the Centre Hall city-wide yard sale and got this for the backyard:
We've been wanting one of these forever! Now I can satisfy my primitive urges to build fires, something which got me into trouble a few times as a kid....

and this for the inside of the house:
We made our first loaf this morning, an easy whole wheat. FANTASTIC!

and this little bird:

Not quite sure of the ID, but I'm guessing a duckling of some sort? Think I saw one of these in a Bugs Bunny cartoon....

Coming attractions:
Adventures in digiscoping: Two flowers vs. Mountain
Niblet in the garden! (finally)

5 comments:

LauraHinNJ said...

Great yard sale finds. I especially like the ducky.

;-)

Your top unknown flower is common milkweed - pretty isn't it?! Keep an eye out for monarchs and caterpillars!

I think the little yellow one may be a cinqefoil of some type - not sure.

Mary C said...

Great pix - what did you plant in your garden? We have a few tomato plants, a couple of cucumber plants, and one jalapeno pepper plant. We managed to harvest one cucumber so far. We may have a handful of cherry tomatoes by the end of this week.

Patrick B. said...

The first mystery plant is Milkweed. The second one, not sure without a guide handy.

dguzman said...

Laura: Who knew? In TX, we called a different plant by that name (milkweed)--no telling what that really was! Thanks for the ID help--I knew you'd know.

Mary: I have five tomato plants, six green peppers, a ton of lettuce (two kinds), cilantro, and spinach, plus cabbage, yellow squash, and zucchini. No corn or cukes for us this year, after miserable failures last year....

Thanks, Patrick!

LauraHinNJ said...

There are lots os different types of milkweed, Delia - I have no idea what might grow in Texas!