Monday, June 22, 2009

Happy Summer Solstice!



The last few weeks have been spent working on our yard. After 20 years in our home the front gardens are finally finished. During the last year we put in a new circular driveway, stone walls, walkways and new gardens. I planted around 100 plants and flowers for butterfly, hummingbird gardens. I also put in a tiny pond for tadpoles, and it ended up with baby goldfish hatching, so it's making for a very cozy fish nursery. Now the large pond in the backyard has been completely refurbished, it is now about 6 inches deeper and sports a large waterfalls, and has a filtration system. You can visibly see the fish smile, they are so happy with the new conditions!! A two tier stone patio is next on the work list. Our oldest son has been doing quite a bit of the work. He will be traveling a lot this Summer and couldn't find a job that allowed that much time off, so we are paying him to work here. It is a win win situation, nothing like a fit 22 year old to get some serious work done. I finally hung my Wildlife Habitat sign.

Lots of baby birds and squirrels around. Downy woodpeckers, cardinals, house wrens, robing, Catbirds, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Chipping Sparrows, Grackles, Mourning Doves, Chickadees, Nuthatches,Redwing Blackbirds, House finches, all have brought babies to the feeders the last couple of weeks. The cutest has been the pair of Downy's, Mom comes with the female baby and dad comes with the male. They feed them my famous peanut butter mix. So adorable. So happy to see all these species being so successful in rearing their young.

The last few weeks, Petey and I have been getting out at the crack of dawn and doing a little trail running. Its really nice to get a workout in so early in the day, and the woods are also full of wildlife at that hour. Second week we ran right into a nice 300# bear, so exciting...as always!

Rainiest Spring ever here on the East coast! Now it's officially Summer~hopefully the sun will come out at some point!! Happy Summer Solstice!

No comments: