What's Going on Today

We have been back from vacation for almost a week and it is still difficult to get back in a work mode, especially when our weather is so nice. we are lucky we are not sweltering in a heatwave as much of the rest of the country is.


I have been wandering around outdoors, coffee in hand checking out all that is going on around the yard. There are three baby swallows who have left their nest under the carport, and are now perched on the powerline to the house noisily demanding to be fed by two busy parents.
These three noisy chicks are perched right above my car and the resulting mess from, food in one end, and out the other, is going to be washed off as soon as I get this post done, and of course the car is being moved from under the power lines. There is also the huge mess under the swallow's nest to be cleaned up, sigh!

Nailed across the front of the carport I have a collection of Dollar Store decorative birdhouses. It appears a wren has taken a liking to one rustic looking house and has decided to make it her own to raise a family in. We see her little beady eyes follow us as we pass by on our way in and out the front door of our home. I wonder if it is the same little wren who raised a family in there last year.

Last year we tied a piece of string across the front of the house to secure it more firmly in place as the birdhouse was just hooked to the carport by one very small nail. Momma bird was not too happy at me taking pictures so close and left the nest until I had finished with my photography.

The garden is looking great, though something is chewing holes in the leaves of some of the plants, I have already thrown slug and snail bait out there so I don't think it is those critters, my suspicion is that it coul be earwigs, Shiver!! I don't know what it is about earwigs, they creep me out.
On Sunday I decided it was time to seal the tops of the wooden fence posts surrounding the garden, and as I brushed copious amounts of the watersealer on the top of the posts and it ran down into the cracks, earwigs by the hundreds, swarmed out of the cracks wriggling and squirming and falling to the ground dead. Yah! for water seal. Now to get the other nasty earwigs who are hiding elsewhere, I believe I can lay short pieces of old garden hose on the ground and empty the earwigs out into a bucket of water in the morning. Does anyone know if this works?

The pasture is now dry and brown so the rabbits have found other places to forage for food, like our neighbors irrigated lawn and garden. The plum trees have not produced much fruit this year, but the apple trees are loaded with fruit so our rabbits are not going to go without their treats.