Five Months of Nothing At All

We’re almost halfway through the year. One of my goals was to write something on a blog every week, and I’ve yet to do that. In fact, I’ve yet to write much of anything at all.

How in the world do people write about a single subject? I have so many thoughts and ideas that race through my mind, like a movie played in fast forward; everything races by so fast that you can’t even capture a single moment, or in my case, a single thought. Just ramblings of anything and everything that comes to mind. I guess that’s how my brain works - very abstract; no logic whatsoever. I’ve often said that my thought processes would drive Mr. Spock to drink...  

I seem to have more thoughts racing through in the mornings, as I did today, and now can’t recall a single one of them, damn. I’ll just go with what’s on my mind at this moment.

I finally mowed my lawn last Thursday; it was somewhere around 18” high!  With all of the rain we’ve had - it seems like six weeks straight - it was too wet to mow. Then it got too hot…  Finally the weather gods relented and we had some nice warm days with no rain, and by then I gave serious thought to calling a friend of mine to ask if I could rent a few of his sheep to graze the grass down!  But I bit the bullet and mowed; took me twice as long as usual, and I finished just before a thunderstorm rolled in.

Then I went and bought myself a new weed eater. I have a brand new Toro gas powered, that’s never been used, but it’s too heavy. The new one is a Black & Decker with a lithium ion battery, and very lightweight!  I haven’t used it yet, but I’m sure I’ll get my money’s worth out of it.

Lots of thunderheads moving in this afternoon, as there has been for the past week or so, but so far (knock on wood), only a few boomers. At least the clouds block the sun and cool things down a bit. I worry about my little garden and all of the new plants. If it storms really good we’d get hail and that would destroy them all, and I would be so bummed! They are doing pretty good, with the exception of a couple of basil plants that seem to be withering terribly. I finally turned on the outside water today and gave them all a thorough soaking; hopefully that will help.

I had been so concerned that I hadn’t seen, or even heard, any bees yet this summer! summer. The apple tree next to my driveway is usually teeming with bees by early May, but they flowered early and then a strong wind blew the trees bare of flowers. There were plenty of dandelions on the lawn this year, and I typically wait as long as possible to mow, so the bees can utilize them, but I never saw a single bee.

I have to admit that with all of the concern about bees dying off the past few years because of pesticides, it was almost eerie, and I wondered if I would even see bees this year. And then last week I finally saw some honeybees on the dandelions in the backyard. When I finally mowed, I left a small portion of the lawn uncut so the bees could have the nectar.

My little porch garden makes me happy. I have quite a few plants in a small area; hopefully to attract bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. I have both red and blue Columbine in one large barrel and Lavender in another. There are a couple of middle sized planters with purple Salvia and Yellow Bidens, which looks a lot like Cinquefoil. There are snapdragons, which bees like, and hopefully the hummers, four nice, healthy looking deer scarlet Nasturtiums, which attract all three pollinators, Bee Balm, Yellow Yarrow, Sweet Mint (bees love the flowers), two orange Marigolds, an old galvanized metal pitcher with dark blue Lobelia, and a shallow planter with red mini Carnations, white Allysum and blue Lobelia. And of course, my Bitterroots, which are getting ready to bloom! I want to add some Lemon Verbena too; I’d better get some before the nurseries run out! 

For my kitchen garden, also in planters of the porch, there are eight Sweet Basil, four  Early Girl tomatoes,  two Oregano, Lemon Thyme, English Thyme, Garlic Chives, six Anaheim Peppers, and soon to add green onion sets and cilantro with the peppers for my Salsa Garden!  Around the north side of the house are two Bleeding Hearts, which are already producing flowers. I have to get my camera out there and photograph them!

The unfortunate things about this little garden is that all of the plants have to be in tomato cages or welded wire cages, to keep the damn neighborhood cats from using my planters as litter boxes!  I learned that lesson several years ago when someone’s cat began digging in the barrel that held my Lemon Balm, and my beautiful, robust plant became very wilted and dried up. I had to pull the entire plant out and throw it away. Cursed cats!  I’ve heard they don’t like mint though, so maybe some mint oil scattered around the porch will keep them away, or some small linen bags with mint leaves sprayed with mint oil. I’ll have to experiment.

Some day I want to extend my front deck, and redesign it so the steps are in front of it and not next to the house. That way I can make lower risers on the steps, and have more room for flowers and plants, as well as my patio table. And I want to make it out of the recycled stuff, so there’s no maintenance. Someday…

I also have two humming bird feeders hanging on the porch. I put them out early this year, and was rewarded with not one, but TWO pairs of what I believe are Calliope Hummingbirds!  In the past I’ve gotten only Rufous hummers, which are very aggressive and drive off any competitors. But this year I have the Calliopes, and the are not only non-aggressive, but will tolerate my presence fairly closely. And have I taken any photos of the yet?  NO! 

I put out four bird feeders for the finches and other small birds: three thistle feeders for and one caged feeder with a mixture of sunflower and safflower seeds - that is the hands down favorite so far. I tried some meal worms but they were dried ones and I really didn’t have many takers on those. Next time I’ll try live ones. I’d also like to put out a tray of fruit for the Orioles that I know are around here somewhere, but only after I can figure out how to keep the ants out of it. I’ll need a moat of some kind and I’ll need to keep it full! 

I’ve only seen one butterfly on the porch so far, some species of Fritillary, but Spring got a late start and summer probably will too. We’ll see what happens in the next couple of months.