Ten Little Celebrations – May 2024

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May 2024 was full of little celebrations…with near perfect temperatures and some big events.

3 pink irises - Most of the irises were fading by May but there were three still in good condition in a flower bed at the side of our house which can’t be seen (by us or our neighbors) except by walking around our house. I saw them when I was mowing and cut them to bring indoors.

Bleu Monkey - The first thing we did in Hot Springs was to have lunch. We picked a great place – tasty food and a huge drink (that my daughter did not finish)…but what made it celebratory was the interaction with the other patrons!

Garvan Woodland Gardens – My daughter and I both celebrated our experience at Garvan Woodland Gardens (via golf cart and on foot). I’m sure we’ll go again…maybe experience it in every season over the next few years.

Whirlpool bath at Buckstaff Bathhouse in Hot Springs – The Buckstaff Bathhouse is a way to celebrate history and the great feel hot springs.

Large birdbath – I moved a large glass birdbath from Maryland but didn’t set it up last year because I didn’t think the old stand was stable enough in our environment. I bought a new stand at Branson’s Butterfly Palace last fall and celebrated how great it looks set up near our bird feeders…and that I’ve seen birds coming to get a drink.

Mowing the whole yard in one day – Usually I mow my yard over 2 days…so I celebrate when I can do it one. It helped that May was cool…I probably won’t attempt it when the temperatures are higher.

A new family member - One of my nieces had a baby girl….always a celebratory event.

New glasses - I celebrated new plastic frames (rather than wire rims with pads as the bridge) that feel better on my narrow nose bridge.

Salmon salad – Salad made with canned salmon and celery (and other veggies) with chipotle mayonnaise (or other spicy dressing) has become one of my favorite lunches. I celebrated rediscovering a staple (canned salmon) that my mother always had in her pantry.

Aurora from our deck – My husband and I both celebrated that we managed to see and photograph the aurora from the deck of our house! It was very special.

Our Missouri Yard – May 2024

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May is when our yard becomes lush with new growth --- with the warmer temperatures and plentiful rain. The plants love it.

The wildflower garden that I started last year has returned either from reseeding or coming up from last year’s roots. I cleared some more rocks/landscaping cloth around the edges and planted more seeds there but they haven’t emerged yet.

The seeds I planted on the sunny side under the pine tree are coming up! I am going to cut down the pokeweed growing around the perimeter to make sure the area doesn’t become too shady.

The fragrant sumac I planted last year is back with lots of new leaves – like the bush beside it (which I haven’t identified but I like the leaves).

The alliums are blooming in the area outside the flower bed near my office window. I am converting the area from grass/moss to other things. Right now, it is thick with alliums, daffodil leaves, violets, and some weeds/grass. The spikenard I bought last fall has returned but is still relatively small. The stainless-steel iris I bought for my mother (Mother’s day 2023) is now in that area too.

The glass birdbath I carefully packed and moved from Maryland is now out and visible from one of my office windows (where I sit to make Zentangle tiles). I haven’t noticed any birds finding it yet. The stainless-steel spider mum is under a nearby pine…also an area I am converting from grass.

There are some holes in the turf of our yard where plants have come up. Sometimes I let them grow. The most successful area is lambs ear to the side of our house by the gate to our backyard. I hope that it eventually joins with some lambs ear that is growing in the corner made by the fence and the house (it has a small pokeweed growing with it). It has many bloom stalks. I’ll let them make seeds then cut them – hope the plant continues to expand via roots too.

On the other side of the fence is some more lamb ear and showy golden rod that I bought last fall. Hopefully the goldenrod will get enough sun to bloom well in that spot.

The hens and chicks are multiplying in the front rock garden.

And the kousa dogwood is full of blooms.

We have been mulching leaves and grass into the yard…and frequently see small mushrooms. They’re decomposing all that plant debris into nutrients the roots of the plants can absorb! I love to see evidence that the yard is vibrant with life other than just grass; we are succeeding in making it less a monoculture with shallow roots (i.e. turf grass).

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/22/2020 – First Birds

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Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Looking at our birdfeeder camera videos and clipping a picture of the first bird recorded at the birdfeeder for each day of the month (so far). Can you identify each one? The clips from the video are not always clear. It’s easier to make IDs from watching the video – seeing how the bird moves. I put the list underneath the gallery.

  1. Carolina Wren

  2. Chipping sparrow

  3. Dark-eyed junco

  4. Tufted Titmouse (with a chipping sparrow flying in)

  5. Red-bellied woodpecker (male)

  6. Chipping sparrow with mourning doves below

  7. House finch (male and female)

  8. Northern Cardinal (female) and house finch (male)

  9. Carolina wren

  10. Northern Cardinal (female)

  11. Carolina Wren

  12. Brown-headed Cowbird (female)

  13. In the rain – Brown headed Cowbird (female) with Northern Cardinal pair below

  14. Red-bellied Woodpecker (male)

  15. Red-bellied Woodpecker (male) and Brown-headed Cowbird (female) with Northern Cardinal (male) below. The cowbird left first leaving the woodpecker to enjoy breakfast.

  16. Brown-headed Cowbirds (male and female)

  17. Brown-headed Cowbird (female)

  18. House finch (male) and Brown-headed Cowbird (female)

  19. Carolina Wren

  20. Carolina Wren

  21. House Finch (male)

  22. Carolina Wren with peanut

I noticed when I was listening to the first videos for each morning that there is often a phoebe in our yard greeting the day (they are insect eaters so don’t come to our deck).

The cowbirds are around a lot more this year, but they don’t seem to be deterring the other birds at the feeder. The woodpeckers and finches are aggressive enough to drive them away and the cardinals wait until they leave.

Refilling the birdfeeder and bath. I let the feeder be emptied by the birds. The little ones like the chickadees do a thorough job. The bigger birds like the woodpeckers are more interested in peanuts and sunflower seeds…very frustrated when the supply is low. The morning was so cold (in the low 40s) that I put my coat on for the chore.

Perfecting the grocery list. I have settled into a grocery delivery pattern: selecting a morning delivery time slot 3-4 days in advance then building up the list in the interim, marking my calendar for the 2-hour interaction with the shopper/delivery person. Thursday is the big day this week – and I got a morning time slot! There are 36 items on the list.

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Browsing Life Magazine from 1946. The March 25th edition included an article about Bikini Atoll… a topical paradise before the atomic bomb testing started just a short time after the pictures for the article were taken.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts  here.

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/11/2020 – Found Mirror

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Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

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Noticing the big buds on the sycamore. The buds outside on the tree are finally getting big Soon they will have small leaves…and those leaves will continue to grow all summer until some get to be as big as dinner plates.

Witnessing quite a bit of bird drama: Our backyard was an active place yesterday.

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Surprise! We have juncos again! There are at least 2 of them around still. In years past, they were gone by now. Maybe the very windy weather has caused them to not make it to their summer nesting areas so they came back to refuel.

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A red-bellied woodpecker drives away cowbirds from the bird feeder. The cowbirds generally seem aggressive, but the red-bellied woodpecker made short work of about 6 cowbirds on the deck around the feeder. It flew in the cowbirds scattered

A piliated woodpecker inspects our forest. We see a few every year but they don’t seem to stick around our area of the forest. I saw it fly into the tulip poplar at the edge of the forest. It was hidden by leaves at first then came out and was preening. I looked more rounded than usual with its feathers fluffed out.

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A red-bellied woodpecker found edibles in the sycamore. Usually they come to the feeder and ignore the nearby trees. Yesterday there was an exception. There was pecking going on!

Filling the bird bath. The wind and low humidity of the day before had caused it to dry out. I had a little surprise when I went out with the pitcher of water in the morning just after breakfast – there was a thin layer of ice in the bowl! It popped out easily, falling to the ground below the deck - and I filled the bird bath with the water from the pitcher – hurrying back inside to get warm. Yesterday was a low humidity day as well – but not quite as windy.

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Enjoying spaghetti sauce tomato soup. I wasn’t hungry enough for pasta so I simply added some celery to the spice tomato meat sauce….added fried onions on top. It was a great light meal.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts  here.

In the early day of our ‘stay at home as much as possible,’ I cleaned out some boxes that had been in our basement since we moved to the house 25 years ago. One was a box of framed prints and other larger flat things that I’d boxed up after my mother-in-law died 4 years before that. I didn’t remember the mirror at all. It had been protected inside the frame of a larger picture, held in place by padding. There was a bit of tarnish along one side. Perhaps she bought it a few months before she died, and I hadn’t noticed it – I simply put it in the box with other things that it could be packed with. Once found - I hung it in the entry hall of our house.

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Now I notice it every time I go downstairs – which I do many times a day on the way from the upstairs bedroom/my office and the kitchen/doors to outside. It’s probably not something I would have purchased but I like it more as the days go by. It’s part of our family history simply because she chose to buy it. And so – the mirror on the wall, hung by another generation as a reminder of the past and reflecting the present. Perhaps it becomes an heirloom in our future.

Eastern Bluebird – January 2020

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On the second day of the year, a male Eastern Bluebird appeared in our backyard. I saw him first near the bird bath. By the time I got my camera, the bird was in the sycamore…looking serious. It was a relatively cold day so the bird’s feathers were a little fluffed to provide more warmth; he looks very rounded.

I thought he had flown way but when I checked the videos from our birdfeeder, I found that the bird had attempted to visit the feeder….but headed to a perch was too high to get and seed. It quickly backed away and I didn’t see it again. Even though the clips from the Reolink video are a little blurry – it does show how the bird maneuvers to back away from the birdfeeder.

We don’t see bluebirds very often so this it was a pleasant surprise to see the bird. In January 2018, I managed to photograph 3 bluebirds at our birdbath!

Blue Jay at the Birdbath

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I was pleased to see a Blue Jay at our bird bath. Back in July, my husband I had found blue jay feathers to the side of our house and we didn’t see or hear them for several weeks. A week or so ago, we started hearing them again and then one came to the birdbath! I liked this picture because it shows the wing feathers so nicely…the blue with white bars on the flight feather, the more down-like feathers covering the top of the wing and the neck.

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This week is at the Howard County Conservancy Camps is about flight and I’m going to bring this picture and the feathers for the campers to look at closely….flight feathers up close. It’s a great supplement to the rest of the activity I have planned.

Bluebirds at our Birdbath

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We have a group of Eastern Bluebirds frequenting our birdbath on these very cold days. The first time I saw them there were 6 birds gathers around the rim. By the time I managed to get my camera there were only 3 left.

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I was taking pictures through a window, but one seems to know exactly where I was!

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The bird’s attention was a little diverted by another bird flying away.

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Then it returned to me.

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The last bird seemed very comfortable at the birdbath. Its feathers were fluffed and it was savoring the bit of warmth from the heated rim. Its colors were muted – a female. It was the last to leave.

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I’ve seen groups of bluebirds at the bath several times since on very cold days. I’m glad we can provide a source of water for them. Bluebirds are in our area year-round. Their numbers are the result of an aggressive nest box program … dedicated people that help maintain the boxes.

What a joy to see these little birds on a cold day!