speed-mowing and bird-watching

I broke the 35-minute mowing 'record' just now. That's just the second mowing of the upper lawn, which should be more embarrassing than it appears. The lower lawns have not been completely mowed yet, and of course the lowest lawn (that I wasn't sure belonged to us!) has not been addressed yet in our 2+ years here.  Oops.

This heat wave came with a bonus ¼-inch of rain beforehand.  We managed to assemble the square garden and plant our vegetables, which had suffered during the previous warm spell in their pots.  Several plants received larger pots too, so that rain settled them in nicely.  Not everything is where we'd like it to be later, but in the ground beats in the pot when the sun beats down.

I haven't quite assembled the front-porch roof, which would also double as a sun-shade at times like this. We'll get there next week once these three days reaching for 99° have passed.

Our thrush count remains low, so they must be waiting for a major push soon.  Our robins still dominate the airwaves with crows singing bass croaks, and a few whistles and warbles intervene. I spotted our local Towhee again today, with his amber eye and colorful coat - but I do not yet know which song belongs to them.  Hopefully a few more of the Swainson's Thrushes will get here soon and sing us gently to rest and to wakefulness in the coming few months!






Update - how funny!

While shooting the Towhee I caught a Swainson's thrush staring at the funny colorful bird.. that's him on the right side of this other image! I had no clue the thrush was there until I went to crop some of the photos the next day.

more planting, and the first mowing

I had planned to plant raspberries adjacent to the blueberries that came with the house, but a few things made that plan unappealing.  For one thing some wild berries are already in that area, creeping toward the blueberries - so at some point soon the mix could confuse.  The cute new fence has run out of raw materials before it would reach the raspberries so that's also not ideal.

leaf-piles as the snow fell

The final piece came almost by accident.  Last fall I raked the leaves into a long pile, then let it sit a long time as the autumn rains pounded us severely.  Winter set in and froze those leaf-piles, and finally a few weeks ago I moved them to a more properly place.  What a surprise: the grass in those places is quite dead, or stunned enough to appear so.

And so the crest of our hill has now become an ideal place for planting!

The first step was placing the new magnolia, which had a good spot in that area - we had a natural hole in the ground that would break an ankle if it were not filled, and both of us felt that was a good magnolia spot.  With bare ground to either side the raspberries had found a home, so they will sit just south of the magnolia to stay in the sun as the tree rises higher.

This is subject to change, but for now it's better than them sitting in pots awaiting a firm decision.

In the meantime, here are our first magnolia blooms!