Quiet Sunday

The birds are strangely quiet this morning, and we're under a cotton-batting sky of solid gray. I heard a catbird's mewing earlier, but now everything is quiet. I'm wondering if the birds know something is coming--a storm, maybe. Do birds sense these things? I would imagine they do, but does it make them get very quiet? I've seen that phenomenon on movies, like just before the big hurricane, all the tropical animal noises stop. But this is Central PA; not much chance of a hurricane.

I went out on the marsh to my migrant-stake-out location and saw. . . nothing. It is colder this morning than it has been, in the upper 50s; maybe that's a contributing factor. Yesterday was beautiful as well, sunny with a high in the low 70s, so we took advantage and finally mowed the lawn and weeded all the garden beds. The front of the house looked like a jungle, with Queen Anne's lace and ragweed reaching up to three feet high.

Yes, I let it get that bad.No, I didn't take a picture; it was too embarassing.

It's all cleared out now, though, and I mowed for the first time in about a month. Neighbor Ed, a compulsive lawn-mower, probably began to cry when he saw me finally starting me up the mower,

One more garden-related note: the Garden Arch, weighed down with morning glory, finally gave up the ghost night before last. I went out to find the metal had completely snapped off at the ground level, and the whole thing had just collapsed. Kat and I worked on clearing that out as well.

Before, a couple of evenings ago, with five-foot Em for scale:

After, yesterday:

It's quite forlorn now, but I imagine those rabid morning glories will take it back over within a couple of days. Meanwhile, I finally cleared out the old lettuce tower (which had grown taller than I am) and all the old bitter lettuce and gone-to-seed cilantro:

Now I can plant some more lettuce and cilantro; I should be able to get some before the cold weather starts.

Here's the collapsed archway, still being strangled by mo-glo's:

That whole thing must've weighed at least 60 lbs; I couldn't lift it, and I can lift 40-lb bags of birdseed without much trouble. The puny little archway (metal, bought on clearance of course at JoAnn Fabrics or someplace--one of Kat's bargain purchases) just rusted and fatigued until it couldn't stand any more. I'm thinking of building a new one out of wood, but then there's the whole pressure-treated thing to deal with. I don't want anything like that near my veggies. I suppose I could get some redwood or cedar; I'll have to price that at the local mega-home-improvement store.

And my beautiful sunflowers, dancing in the breeze:


It's a quiet Sunday here at the Marsh House, and although there are no birds around, I'm not complaining. The weather is cool, there's a gentle breeze, and all seems right with the world. But then, it always seems that way when I'm home.