Stalking the Red Ruby Throat

I've been trying to get a good hummingbird photo for a few days. The hummingbirds come right up to the dining room window and land on the crocosmia. Lucy was standing next to me, dressed in full princess garb, waving her wand, and somehow the bird didn't fly away.

Garden Picture Collage

 

Oh, the fauna! It's not hissing and it's not the destroyer.

So I took a bunch of pix of all the birds that have been visiting our yard.
First, there are a male and female rose-breasted Grossbeak on my tray feeder.

Second there are two Baltimore Orioles, a male and a female on my hummingbird feeder. And another male about to eat some grape jelly off the deck.

Then we get to the Wild Turkeys. Almost as sweet as the whiskey. The first pic has a male and a female and a Cardinal. Then a male Turkey, but possibly a juvenile.
Then the grandaddy of them all, a male Turkey with mature plumage. He just waited at the back of the yard for the female to finish eating, and stopped visiting once he established this was a safe place to eat. So it isn't the clearest picture, but cool nonetheless.




Finally, I took a picture of this bizzaro moth.

Also, if you're still reading, I reviewed the new Ladytron CD, Velocifero, for Venus. Check it out.

On breaking free

1. My first flower of the year bloomed -- a type of Scilla. I hope it soon is one of many.

2. I'm pleased to report the presence of two new reviews on the Venus website that have finally seen the light of day. Check them out here and over here. BTW, that equals the number put up since September when the site got a new editor. I hope my reviews fare at least as well as the flowers in my garden. Spring is here and it is a good time for optimism.

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Now playing: Heloise & The Savior Faire - Illusions

Why I Love Garden Design Magazine

My new issue of Garden Design magazine just arrived with an article detailing how to rip out your lawn, and replace it with non-grass alternatives.

There are a variety of reasons that we will probably never free ourselves from the cycle of mowing, weeding, and fertilizing as much as I would love to, but reading the article reminded me that my distaste for my neighbor's pursuit of the perfect lawn is not completely misplaced.

Much like the last issue that was full of exotic Salvias, there is always something I'm compelled to read about, or dream about. They ran an article on Natural Swimming Pools, the only kind I would ever consider and hence we will never have a pool.

Here are some photos from my garden that I never got around to posting:

From left to right: Kniphofia, Canna, Crocosmia Lucifer

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Now playing: PJ Harvey - Grow Grow Grow

I Broke My Crown

1. The kittens finally have names my dad can remember. Kitten number one is now Teddy, and kitten number two remains Twoey. My mom has suggested that she might name them Tedric and Toulouse, but use the other names all the time. If that happens I don't think anyone but the Vet's office will know about it.

2. It looks like my Croscosmia Lucifer is going to bloom for the first time ever. This is the third year I have had it but the deer ate it, and it has taken awhile to bounce back. One of my Canna Lillies also has a very large unopened bloom on it. If either of these plants look good at some point I will post pictures. I am sure you are all waiting expectantly.

3. Most of Cary's family got together yesterday. His parents, 6 (out of 8) siblings, 5 spouses/boyfriends, and 15 (out of 17) grandkids. Nothing went wrong; it was really fun. My kids had a great time with their cousins. The cupcakes that were intended for dessert were gone by 3:30.

My father-in-law staged a wine tasting that included some red wine from India. We all concluded it was horrible! Not even safe to add to your curry.

Although at one point Lucy tripped and fell. My father-in-law started reciting Jack and Jill to her while my Mother-in-law went to grab a band aid. Now she will look at me gravely at random intervals and say, "Mommy, I broke my crown."

Cabin Fever

The children and I have cabin fever, something not usually seen in these parts in the summer, but with temps in the high 80s, and Henry's behavior in public pools remaining untrustworthy, we are forced to stay inside.

Henry eats his way through the day. I can't tell if he's bored, having a growth spurt, or reacting to withdrawal from the hidden calories in the school lunches.

Lucy punches, pokes, and otherwise annoys him any way she can. A summers worth of time out awaits.

Once they go to sleep at night I spend the rest of the evening saving my poor plants from complete dessication. I am a slave to the garden hose.

I have another review up on Venuszine. You can read it here.

Gone Wrong Miscellany

1. Kitten Update: Mo has now been officially re-christened Twoey after I admitted to my mom that my dad and I were referring to him as Twoey in private.

2. I have had migraines three out of the last four days. So, not surprisingly I have been extremely distracted by the white noise inside my own head. I now have an appointment with the M.D. neuro as opposed to the P.A. that I usually see since I no longer think that my treatment is going the way I would like. Hopefully by early July I will have some answers. But I will do just about anything to avoid another transfusion and the drugs that followed it. At least now I know.

3. Cary and I spent the weekend trying to buy a grill. Normally such an inane domestic purchase would not be worth blogging about but we are so hopelessly inept, even at shopping for something like a grill, that even though our hand-me-down grill has been broken for a year, and we have been planning to buy a grill for over a month, it still took us more than 24 hours to choose a stupid grill. We have concluded that we like getting household items given to us for free (duh) not just because its cheap but because we have so much trouble making a decision. This is why most of our furniture used to belong to someone else, and some is held together with bungee cords. It's much easier than picking out something new. Thank god they put it together for us.

4. I spent a portion of the afternoon spraying homemade insecticidal soap (rubbing alcohol, dishsoap, and water) on much of my garden because I have a pretty serious four lined plant bug infestation. It is more of an annoyance than anything else, but they were all over my asters, which were struggling as it is. Hopefully they will still bloom this fall.

5. This is the last week of Kindergarten.

Friday Garden Picture

Taking a page from Jen14221's fkp, I offer you an "fgp," if you will. Though it may be the only one I ever do. The clematis is fully in bloom, as is the salvia in front of it. The allium hasn't given out yet, and the lime rickey heuchera to the far left are blooming as well. It's a pretty decent time for the garden. I am taking this picture mostly for posterity because I am sure the clematis will never look like this again, ever.

Remembering the long weekend

1. After chirpily telling the neuro. that I "hadn't had a single migraine this month," I have basically had one for six days since. The pills have worked, but when it keeps coming back like this it means the headache never really goes away. This is the first old school, pre-medication headache I have had since before they started pumping me full of medicine, and I am not happy about it. I was supposed to be getting off all these pills around, oh yeah, right around now.

2. Nice weather brings out the neighbors. Maybe its good that we have basically nine months of bad weather here in B-lo. On Saturday we had the teenage version of the Michigan militia next door. About 20 teenage boys were suited up to go and play paint ball in the the woods but they looked like a freaking S.W.A.T. team, and I found all of their guns very disturbing, not to mention the sound of the guns firing. Then on Monday, after I had spent two full days putting close to 30 2 cu. ft. bags of mulch on my flower beds I look up to see my next door neighbor planting silk flowers around a tree right next to the road. Wtf! And these are just the nice neighbors that happen to live on either side of me.

3. Cary spent most of the weekend potty training Lucy. She is doing great. She actually woke up dry this morning. The whole process makes me incredibly tense though, so I am glad he is willing to handle it. I just had to take over when he went back to work on Tuesday.

Here are a few pictures from the garden. Warning: None of these flowers are made of silk!


Pic 1. Allium, Clematis, and annual Phlox
Pic 2. Sempervivum in bloom
Pic 3 Perennial Osteospermum

Avian Visitors Continue to Arrive

I think this may be my favorite time of year. Today two more birds arrived, and one, the red-headed woodpecker, was a first time visitor. Generally our hummingbirds start arriving around Memorial Day, so this was a bit early.I did not take either of these pictures because the hummingbirds are too skittish and the Red-headed woodpecker was too far away.



In other bird-related news Lucy had gone to sleep with a little bird toy in her bed, and the belly section had become completely tangled in her hair this morning so the toy had to be cut out with scissors. She woke up saying, "Mommy, get bird out of hair, pleease!"

By the time M.I.A.'s new CD is available for purchase most of the backyard birds will no longer be giving me the time of day, but here's a little something to tide us over until then. M.I.A - "Bird Flu"

Welcome Visitors Return

Spring has finally arrived. Last Friday I was excited to see a Rose-breasted Grossbeak land on my bird feeder. The Grossbeak was followed a few days later by the return of the Baltimore Orioles. I have seen as many as three at a time this year. Last, not a sign of spring but fun nonetheless, we have seen a wild Turkey in the early morning the past few days. Yesterday they were all visiting at the same time so I tried to take some pictures.












That's the grossbeak on the tray feeder and the oriole on the suet.
(Hint: click on the pictures for a slightly better view.)

While I am not usually a fan of Andrew Bird (get it the tie in?), but he too has been welcome since I have been playing one song from his latest record nearly non-stop. Check it out. Andrew Bird - "Imitosis"

The date: October 12

The weather in Buffalo: currently snowing! Need I say more?

Lots of other things have gone wrong recently but I have been too busy basking in the afterglow of the Jenny Lewis concert to care.

This won't be turning into a music blog because there are certainly plenty of those, but maybe I have found the magic formula: attending x number of excellent concerts builds stamina to withstand y number of irksome life incidents. Hooray! With Fiery Furnaces and The Hold Steady on tap who knows, I may not be posting much the rest of 2006...

Update:
I think this qualifies as what went wrong: When I wrote about the snow there were just a few flurries, like haha, it's snowing in Buffalo before Halloween. But now the stuff is sticking to the ground. My poor garden! The photo doesn't do it justice, but the gaura (front, center) is completely snow covered while still in bloom. My Clematis (previously thought to be dead) is blooming so beautifully, but not for long! My plants aren't silvery, they are covered in snow, and now they are going to be gone until next spring.

Failure to disappear

1. The baby bunny is back. I admit, I knew it was trouble from the start, but because it was so little and cute I didn't react the way I do when I see its full-grown relatives around. I usually open the window and say, "hey, baby bunny, you don't live here." The thing is, maybe it does. I have been accepting my losses gracefully until today when I noticed that it had messed with one of my Clematis. Not the one I thought I killed, which has recovered quite well, but another one, pictured above. It had eaten its way across the base of the plant, essentially giving the above ground portion a death sentence. I took action. I had decided that plant needed a new home anyway because it wasn't getting enough sun, so I dug the entire thing up, and managed to move it, trellis and all, because bb didn't get every single vine. So before lunch time it had a new home in a sunnier spot not favored by bb. I may even see a bud or two before frost.
2. Henry was very disappointed today because he was trying to do a magic trick. He constructed a magic wand out of Magnetix then put a towel over a toy Mini Cooper. Then he tried a series of magic words including classics like Abracadabra, but also something like Ony mony pepperoni. Then he called out to me, "Mama, my magic trick is never going to work. I made a wand, put out this towel, and said abracadabra. But it never works. Auuughhh." I tried to explain about magic being sleight of hand and a trick of the eye (I was using the computer to comparison shop for Le Sportsac purses, but I was not out of earshot.) I said it was something people had to learn. He replied, "Oh, Mama, can I visit a magic shop?" And I said, "Let's talk about it when your daddy gets home." This is code for "maybe you will forget and I can move onto your next micro-interest.

1. A mystery animal dug its way up into my back flower bed where it miraculously left all of the plants untouched, at least for today. I think it did dismantle my slug trap though.
2. Lucy banged and I think also bit the inside of her lip on the corner of a storage bench. Many tears and much bleeding ensued. Fortunately the cut was small and she rebounded nicely once she put on the hat she was trying to get in the first place and had an aah-pop.
3. A resurgence of Lucy's cold forced us to cancel our plans to go to Cary's parents house for pizza and swimming.
   

Fishy. No, seriously fishy.

1. I was outside doing some yard work when I heard Lucy was awake so as I was heading in to get her I noticed there was a dead fish laying on our brick path.
2. Where do I begin? It is just sitting there, lifeless, covered with flies.
3. How did it get there? Do our neighbors hate us or did an unlucky Great Blue Heron drop it while flying over head?

1. The mystery rash is still present and has migrated to Henry's face and the backs of his elbows. The nurse at his doctor's office didn't seem too concerned about it, so we are just hoping that Benadryl takes care of it.
2. Henry went to get dressed today and had no clean underwear because I had forgotten to collect his dirty clothes on Friday when I did laundry.
3. So I don't know for sure because I didn't actually see it, but I think Deer visited us in the night and knocked down my Goldfinch feeder and made it all sticky with their yucky deer spit. Gross!