stubbed toes and mud pies

[digitS']

House Finches have a very interesting ..

. recent history.

There were big changes for these native American birds.

Steve

 

[Nyboy]

For about 20 years a pair of cardinals have nested and raised family at kennel. I am not sure if it has been the same pair, or different birds over the years. I know some birds have very long life spans, the concurs I have can live 30 to 40 years. Once I was treated to sight of both mom and dad and 4 of their offspring stracking around parking lot.

 

[flowerbug]

For about 20 years a pair of cardinals have nested and raised family at kennel. I am not sure if it has been the same pair, or different birds over the years. I know some birds have very long life spans, the concurs I have can live 30 to 40 years. Once I was treated to sight of both mom and dad and 4 of their offspring stracking around parking lot.

they've been here as long as the house has been here. not sure how long they live either, but seem fairly hardy as we never feed them so they have to eat the bugs and berries and somehow make it through our winters.

 

[digitS']

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/House_Finch/maps-range

I wanted to be sure that I could identify a resident House Finch here at home. I can! I am somewhat unsure about the distant garden but know that they were there about a month ago. Those critters might not have taken up residence but they are probably just not real close.

House Finches used to be very common in the garden. It might have coincided with me growing sunflowers, starting about 12 or 15 years ago. Anyway, they always seemed to be around.

Then, they weren't ..! For about 4 or 5 years, I haven't identified a House Finch, NOT in the gardens or here at home. Take a look at the map and notice how their range doesn't extend all the way up the WA!/ID border ... I didn't realize that I am at their northern limits until this year when I began asking myself "where have they been and why haven't they been HERE?"

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

@digitS' no correlation here at all with growing sunflowers. we used to grow some, but not much at all the past half dozen years.

for us a big part of keeping small bird diversity going is making sure the grackles aren't allowed to dominate (which they will easily do).

 

[flowerbug]

gardens doing well enough. cucumbers getting ready to pick again.

hope we get some more rain.

playing a little groundhog tag the past several days, but for sure buried one of them and the other may be on the way out as i did hit it yesterday, but it was able to run and hide in the pallets so i couldn't finish it. i may have to get under those pallets to get it out of there if it is dead and under there. not something i want to smell the rest of the summer... *sigh*

can't wait until i get all of them out of there, such a mess...

 

[flowerbug]

feel much better today. a few hours in the gardens weeding and able to do it without major knee, arm or lower back pain. perfect day out there. will go back out for a second shift later this afternoon. on break now.

 

[flowerbug]

finally got a few pictures posted and all that:

flower pic of course:

and heavy rain pictures:

yes, we do need those raised beds back there...

oops a bit too low...

when someone says go with the flow...

 

[flowerbug]

ah, nice to have a short vacation before it gets even more crazy around here...

my sister and her partner visited from out west (southern CO and northern NM) i'd not met him in person before but have heard much about him so it was great to put a name and face together. we call him the cookie monster so you can tell he fits in just fine. we took a trip up north, picked stones off the beach for a perfect day, did other touristy things because he'd not been to Michigan before. so a trip across the Mackinaw Bridge and to see ships going through the Soo Locks was in order. we came back Friday evening and then Mom managed to be able to see all of her children on the same day. it all worked out. my one brother is very disabled so not always predictable if he even wants to talk to someone let alone able to drive, but he did come over for a while and got to see my sister and Mom.

unfortunately last Sunday doing my usual weeding i managed to pull my achilles tendon. i've weeded in that same method/position thousands of times before so there was no real reason for it to be upset, but... so i've been hobbling all week, but survived. picking beans the next month gonna be fun... today Mom will pick tomatoes and then i'll put up whatever i can use from those. it might be a lot of splits because of recent rains and a lot of them being ripe. worms will get whatever i can't use...

beans are starting to be ready to pick the past few weeks, lima beans mostly, but i'll have to hunt through the bean patches for any others that are turning and should be picked and dried, this week is calling for rains in the forecast and i don't want to lose any of the early ones if i can help it since those are the ones i'm really interested in using for further selections if they've formed/grown well and seem to be doing good in production/flavor... today may be the only dry day once the fog/dew burns off i'll be scouting. i was able to show the cookie monster some of the beans and we sampled a few fresh ones in the gardens.

as it goes. tomatoes coming in well so far. we'll see what today looks like in an hour or two. currently it is yet another late summer foggy bottom morning. *drip drip drip*

edit: looks like 7 buckets of tomatoes coming in the door so today will be busy cleaning up those and putting them in quart jars. have a fun day!

half way done so far, having a sandwich and a break and then back to work to finish. looks like about 40-45 quarts. turned out to be 42 quarts total for the day. my feetsies are tired...

 

[flowerbug]

pic of tomatoes ready to go into the pantry from last month: