Monday, May 22, 2006

More! More!

As I recall from an earlier post, I said one of my gardening strategies for this year would be more. Well, today I came home from work and found that my gardening space had been increased by one third; The Hermit had assembled five new 4 x 8 raised bed frames. I now have a total of eighteen raised beds, not counting the 4 x 4 potato bins. I could just kiss him!

Of course, the beds need to be lined with feed sacks (my half-a$$ attempt at keeping the weeds out) and filled with aged horse manure, but that's the fun part!

And a deer fence...might be needing one of those...

In other news, I learned yesterday that hummingbirds have a lot of nerve. I had just set out a new hummingbird feeder, and was going to empty the other one and replace the nectar, when I heard a high-pitched chattering, buzzing noise coming from up in a tree. There sat Ruby Throat, madder than a hornet, and cussing me out for even thinking of touching his feeder. I backed off; I don't need any hummingbirds mad at me.

Birds seen or heard today include: Sedge wren (all night!) robin, red winged blackbird, raven, crow, chickadee, blue jay, goldfinch, purple finch, baltimore oriole, ruby throated hummingbird, red breasted nuthatch, eastern phoebe, American bittern, common merganser, purple martin, tree swallow, magnolia warbler, black and white warbler, ovenbird, yellowthroat, brown thrasher, and catbird.

5 comments:

R.Powers said...

Wow, good bird day. Were the bittern and merganser on your creek or on the job?

Deb said...

Bitterns are around here, I hear them pumping early in the morning and sometimes in the evening. The merganser was at work; I had to go meet our creel survey clerk at a boat access and while I was waiting I stood on the dock and looked into the crystal clear water and also watched birds. It was there I saw the brown thrasher (in some shrubs near the shore) and the purple martins (a pair flying over the water). I also saw some kind of shorebird (probably a spotted sandpiper). Yes, when I added up everything, it was a nice day.

Elise said...

Okay lady, back away from that nectar and no one will get hurt!

Sue said...

Oooo. More raised beds- What a great hubby. And great bird list today!

Anonymous said...

When hummingbirds go bad...I have some of those rascals here too... very impatient.

Great raised beds!!! Look like tasty deer buffets, though. We need more than good deer karma here to keep them out of our beds, grrr....