Wednesday, June 27, 2012

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Tuesday started off cool and cloudy and then morphed into a wonderful sunny day, yeah!!!!

I spent the entire day outside … except for tea breaks, lunch breaks, visiting with DH.

And what a day.

The winds continued all day ..blowing the clouds around into the most amazing shapes.   So lucky I can just stop whatever I’m doing so I can just stand there and look up at the shifting shapes.

Saw a glory in one set of clouds, but the refraction of the sun kept entering the shot, so I couldn’t get a good visual to take a picture.  oh well.  I love those “circular rainbows” .. so sparkly and pretty.

At one point, a whir of twinkling colour flew back and forth above my head .. it was a dragonfly! It looked all shiny and new.  And it flew so quickly here and there that I had a time trying to fix it in my vision.  Too swiftly, it flew higher and higher and soon was gone from sight.  One of those magical garden moments.

Sitting on the back steps, Sudoku and mug of Yorkshire Tea .. I finally heard the delicate, cheerful –  high-pitched chattering song of the Bushtits!  Yeah …. I was beginning to wonder.  So I just sat there motionless …trying to get a fix on where they were. They were flitting about the branches on the apple tree .. about the same size as the small apples, so I had to look very closely.  Luckily I was able to get a few pictures.   Darling little birds.

Later on I saw them flying about a few old trees at the other side of the yard.  So happy to see them.

Another magical moment and I don’t have photos of this .. but .. I was refilling the suet holder at another apple tree and suddenly there appeared a little Nuthatch.  Sweet.  He/she just perched on a branch inches away from my face.   Then he flitted about, always settling down on a branch and seemed to look quizzically at me.  So I held out the suet filled holder, just to see if he would perch on it .. but he flew away.

The house sparrows are not nice birds, from what I’ve heard.  Bossy and shoving and pushing all other birds away.  So when I hear them making a big commotion in the trees, I make clapping noises to send them on their way.

I can’t control the birding world, but I can intercept when I can and that’s what I’ll do.

So I’m still waiting to see the Downy Woodpeckers .. maybe they come out at different times of the day during the summer.

interesting article (Larry Pynn, Vancouver Sun) in the Times Colonist this morning “B.C. coastal bird populations plummet, survey shows” … 35 per cent drop in birds over the past 4 decades.  Populations of “aerial insectivores” – swallows, swifts and nightjars, all of which are in B.C. are down more than 80% in Canada.

The causes??? fewer insects due to widespread application of pesticides & climate change upsetting the timing of insect production in relation to nesting of long-distance migrant birds.

Just say NO to pesticides.  Is this a no-brainer?

Well, no pesticides in our little gem of paradise.

Anyway … I finished putting the final layer of seaweed at the base of the garlic patch.  And .. lucky me .. I found more garlic scapes.   Even more than I’d harvested a few days ago!  Plus, I kept breaking away the broken stems from the scapes harvested previously also.  They do keep on growing.

And Bridget http://arignagardener.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/the-longest-day/ wonders if one can make a pesto out of leeks?  I wonder .. does anyone know?  I’m not enough of a creative chef to have tried this.

I finally planted those Kentucky wonder beans … they are nicely settled in to their new location.  I’m so looking forward to see how they grow.

Found a stray tomato plant growing amongst the garlic .. so planted it in a sunny area.  It was very wilted so I watered it with the magical EM and so will see today how well it is doing.

Transplanted some basil into a sunny area of the garden.  More EM!

Checked out my seedlings.  This should be interesting, as the labels have flown away so I’ll have some surprise plantings.    Thy mystery plants will unfold during the summer.

Cleared away some more garden pots.   I’ll be giving away hundreds.   I’ve been storing the empty plant pots in large storage containers.  And now ask myself “why”?   It’s not like I’m planning to have a plant nursery.  Oh, that did cross my mind .. but not for now.  If I need pots, I can always get more.

Feels good to create empty space in the storage area where I keep my plant supplies.  More space where I can bring out my creative paints, beads, tiles, etc. and jut paint in the sunshine.  Let free my creative spirit and just play.

Well .. dressed for the garden.  No evening dress & high heels for me.  Just my Car-hartt denim overalls, long-sleeved shirt, bright socks and gumboots.   Outside to play!

🙂