Odds and "Ends"

These are my tomato plants in their new big containers. This is to protect them from gophers. I am looking forward to yummy tomatoes this fall.

These are the birdies as of yesterday. Getting so big and very cramped. They have taken to taking turns being "King of the Mountain". Today I finally saw their chests and they are just starting to get their red feathers.

My mother will fully appreciate the humor of birdie bottoms.

Sitting Pretty

Well, prettier than they were just a few days ago. Out little babies are starting to look like real birds now. They are also getting more restless! They keep trying to stand up and move around. We're just hoping that they don't fall out of the nest. Mama built it in a very safe place. Safe from predators, and the elements. But, it's also about 6 feet above a concrete floor. Hopefully we won't be finding any broken babies. From what I can figure out (based on a guess from when they hatched) they are some where around the 10-14 days old.

This is mommy bird out looking for food to feed her babies...again.

This is daddy bird with, yet another, mouthfull of food for the little ones.

Bobble-Head Birdies

The title explains it all.

Family Time

Here are some pictures we took while Robert and Kay were here.

It's Official

I've counted all the hanging chads and partial punches and have reached the official count of the baby birds.

There are 4!

Mary, Mary, quite contrary.

I may not have an silver bells or cockle shells but my garden is coming along very nicely. Even if it is a bit uncoventional.

The roses are covering almost twice what they were last year. The hope is the as I tie back more sections to the lattice that by the end of the season we'll have the whol thing covered. It's even growing enough that I have started tieing back sections around the corner.

This is my little blueberry plant. I am not expecting to get any fruit off of it this season, but hopefully it will thrive and maybe start bearing fruit next season.

Yea! My first little strawberry plant!!

Houston doesn't agree with me, but I think my little tomato plants smell so good! This weekend I will be getting three big plastic pots from Wal-Mart along with some tomato cages and lots of potting soil. I will put two plants in each pot and then hope for the best. Maybe if I'm lucky I will have some tomatoes to bring to Nebraska.

I don't have any pictures right now, but the rhubarb is also doing really well.

For those of you wondering, my uncoventional garden is being grown in pots and bags because of the horrible gopher problem we have. If anyone has any suggestions on how to get rid of them, please let me know. Just remember that any remedy has to be safe to use around pets and kids. (We can't use poison bacause Shiloh tries to dig up the gophers when she smells/hears them)

It's a...baby?

A few days ago our robin sqatter became a mommy. She must have laid another egg or two since I first photographed it, because (to me anyway) it looks like there are at least 2 babies in the nest.

I'll take some more pictures in a few days so everyone can see the progession. Lorelei thinks it's really neat when I pick her up so she can peep into the nest. It freaks Houston out. He'd rather have a spanking and be sent to his room than look into the nest.

For those who may be wondering, no we are not touching the nest. Although, it probably wouldn't be a big deal if we did. Here is something I learned when I was researching the life cycle. Birds are really stupid!!! It was thought that if you touched/moved the nest the birds would abandon it. Not so is what people are thinking. From what has been observed is that the parents memorize the nests surroundings, not the nest or even there babies. So if you move it, even a tiny bit they can't find it. One such instance is that a mom laid her eggs and they hatched. She was feeing them for about a week when a storm happened. Now at this point in time, she had invested a lot into her little brood. The tree that they were in was destroyed but amazingly the nest and the babies survived. So, the nice homeowner's carefully put the nest in the tree next to the downed one. Even though the mommy bird could hear her babies crying pittifully for food and warmth and comfort from her, she couldn't find the nest. She saw her nest, but because it was in a different tree she figured it must belong to some other bird.