Counting Blessings

These are a few of my favorite things...

Bindweed flowers, as long as they are not in my garden.

They get their roots pulled up if they try anything there. 

Which only spurs them on to greater heights of vegetative reproduction.

Great big strapping healthy baby bluebirds, raised by hand. Day 42 for the girls.

 I spent pretty much my entire birfday getting a big 15 x 17' flight tent erected in the yard for them. First I had to mow the lawn, because I can't mow once the big tent goes up. Then I had to rake it and while I was at it do some serious weeding. Mil and Fran came over to help and we wound up tying the busted poles on the old tent to trees and stakes. We got her all wired up and pretty strong. Inside: Natural perches, a bath, two food dishes, the whole shebang. It was such fun to capture them and take them outside to their new more spacious digs. And they adore it. They flew around and tried all the new perches and played with the leaves on the branches all afternoon. At dusk I took them into the garage tent because there are coons out there.

They still beg for a little subsidy, though I can tell it's just icing on their cake. They can feed themselves entirely now. We're going to let them get used to the location and being outdoors for a day or two then roll back and tie up the flaps on the big tent and let them explore the yard. The tent has no floor, so they can forage in the grass, and they can also come back inside for mealworms if they need to. And I expect they'll need to. Plus, if the resident yard bluebirds decide they want to beat up my baby girls, the orphans can always come back in their tent...

Yes, I worry. Rehabbers always worry. We worry constantly. I've been working on these birds for three weeks, and I don't fancy having all that thrown aside by a wrong move on my part.

Lessee. I was counting blessings when I got caught up in worrying again. 

I was running with Chet this sparkling clearing morning and he was well ahead of me when I heard a car coming. I put on speed to catch up with him, but I needn't have worried...it was Phoebe, going to work at Bird Watcher's Digest. Of course she stopped to give him some loving.

You can see her thin white arm stretching out to pet him.

We went a little farther and along came Daddeh! I was shooting the fabulous hayroll shadows. Haven't seen shadows in a long time, the clouds have been so thick and the rain so constant. But oh, the lushness. The green.

Chet, clearly wondering who else might come along his road this morning.

Because everybody loves Chet and of course they would stop to tell him he was a good boy. Right?

This dog loves to be admired and photographed. He consciously poses. What a showdog he'd have made, if he were, um, ten pounds lighter. Breed standard gone wild. They're going to make a teacup Boston, mark my word. Show dogs now top out at a meager 13 pounds. And that, to me, is a sacrilege. To me, Chet's beefy, bully perfection. And at 26.5 pounds, he's big enough to make a coyote think twice about carrying him off. Out here, thats a plus.

He still fits on my lap, and that's what counts.

I keep pontificating, taking stances. I was counting blessings...

Knockout roses, having another go. It was too wet for Japanese beetles this year. The roses won.

And the Rudbeckia comes on. Almost time for the indigo buntings to nest. Wonder where they'll go this time?

OK, here's one. A cuphea variety called BATFACE. Yep. Found it again at a farmer's market in Brunswick, Maine while we were looking at Bowdoin College. Yay!

Two twin wild bluebird brothers. I threw the two rotten eggs that they were sitting on into the weeds.  Why their sibling eggs didn't hatch who knows. But they are getting plenty of food as a result.

A sport of Pelargonium "Happy Thought Pink." It has four red petals and one pink. I can see the original, the progenitor of the pink variety, was red! Yippee! Do that again, HFP!!

iPhone camera photos of hummingbirds in mid-air. Yow.

Wham! Zap! Bing! Pow! What is more fun than standing by a hummingbird feeder with your phonecamera? Not much.

So, because I obviously don't have nearly enough flowers at home, I go to Lowe's to buy a new rake, because I am very tough on rakes, having broken several with vigorous raking, and what do I find but a $5 sale on mandevillas including a white one which is sooo pretty. While I'm at it I pick up a $3 tiger-striped canna and a $5  delicate yellow phalaenopsis orchid, because it too must be rescued.