Rain and Reading

It has been raining so much lately I have begun to read books again. I took a break for a while because I was outside so much. But here lately we are having so much rain. I will start posting my reviews of the books I have been reading, some you may find interesting, like the one on composting.

Baby Birds

This weekend I saw something that will never cease to amaze me. At my mothers house she has a beautiful white climbing rose that grows on the side of the garage and climbs over the top of the garage door. This spring two bird families are calling this climbing rose home. There is a dove sitting on what appears to be a very small nest for such a large bird and about three feet above the dove is a robin family. There were three babies, and this Saturday morning they took their first flight. It was just amazing to see the parents giving instructions and then finally the little flittering bird would try his best to do as he was told. Just as the first baby flew the nest, the next baby was perched on the side of the nest waiting for his or her turn at flight.

A few hours later in the afternoon I went over to check on the growth of the blueberry bush and was surprised to find a baby bird perched inside the bush. He stayed on the limb long enough for me to grab the camera and take a picture of him before he flittered over to the fence and luckily landed on the cross post of the fence. Flying is not coming easy for this litttle guy, but not as hard as it is for his sibling over on the other side of the deck. The parents were spending most of their time tweeting instructions and then giving examples of flight from the ground to a perch and the little bird just wasn't budging. I don't blame him really, it looks pretty hard to me. He was the first out of the nest, and evidently either the most stubborn or the most confused. All this baby robin action has me so excited to see the baby doves, I just can't wait.

Rabbits Taking Over My Veggies

I love to garden. Currently I have seven flower beds and one raised vegetable garden. Last weekend, I fenced in my vegetable garden with chicken wire to keep the rabbits out. I have a very cute family of rabbits living in the front yard in my blue spruce tree. Now I am an animal lover, and the rabbits are cute, especially the babies, but I bought lettuce, beets, kale, and broccoli, 8 of each and they devoured almost all of it. So I installed the fence. We will see if this works. I also planted eggplant, tomatoes, okra and onions.
I know there are some ways you can treat the vegetables with chemicals and the rabbits will stay away but I don't want to hurt the little guys. My son likes to feed them hay in the front yard. If only they could read...I could install a sign, veggies not for rabbits. Hay only.