Tag: Squirrels

Daylilies all cut back

Today it was 40° fahrenheit by 9am in our area so I got going right away on the fall clean-up.  All of the daylilies are now cut back.  I included the daylilies out back – the new ‘Hush Little Baby’ daylilies, the ‘Purple D’Oro’ daylilies, the last ‘Just Plum Happy’ daylily and the red daylilies, along with the ‘Marque Moon’ daylilies out front.

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Sad to see them all go, but they were ready.

Also sadly, either the wind or some bird or squirrel broke off the last daylily buds I had found a week or so ago.  I’ll try putting them in water, but I doubt they will bloom.  But, on a more cheerful note, I did find some seed pods from Dad’s hostas that I saved as well.

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I also trimmed two of the three ninebarks, the weigelia, and the alpine currant.

Then I bagged it all up and got it over to compost.

All that clean-up means that next weekend all I have on the schedule is the remaining hostas, two clematis, and one ninebark.  Sad to wrap up, but awesome that things are on schedule.

I still haven’t decided if I will cut back the sedum.  They may stay.  More on that in another post.

Now I can relax.  It’s too windy to use the little fire pit tonight, so I probably won’t bother getting propane, and there’s a lot of activity (birds, squirrels) in the small pine tree, so I will rake the seeds later in the day or tomorrow.

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(Check out the dark-eyed junko on the ground in the two pics above. )

One of our white squirrels stopped by while I was getting lunch ready.  I tried to get a pic but she was being camera shy today.

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All in all, it was a good morning.  Now I deserve a cup of coffee and a good book 😍

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Sunrise, Sunset

Last Friday I couldn’t sleep past 5am so I got up and had a leisurely start to the day.  About six I thought about taking a short snooze but then looked out the patio blinds and … It was the start of an absolutely glorious dawn.

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Just on the edge, the crickets were still chirping and the first bird flew past.  Then I heard rustling, and a chirp.  Then the cardinal tested out his morning singing.  Absolutely wonderful.  I had to grab a sweatshirt, a cup of hot cider, and my phone.

The first squirrel came by.

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Mama cardinal came for some breakfast.  Two hummingbirds flitted around and around for over half an hour, sipping at the feeder a bit, and stopping by the ‘Rainforest Sunrise’ blooms.  An hour and a half later I reluctantly reminded myself that no, an impromptu vacation day was not an option this time.  But it was a fabulous start of the day.

The sunset that night was cloudless.  A beautiful, gorgeous fall day.  No clouds meant a clear sunset.

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The next morning the sunrise had just the faintest line of clouds.

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Another gorgeous day.  The squirrels and birds arrived.  The hummingbirds chirped.  Our guest in the garden arrived and we enjoyed his company.

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And so it goes.  Tulips to lilies to hostas to sedum to an abundance of leaves on the ground to snow drifts.  Ground with frost to days with air conditioning and back to days with sweatshirts on.  I have worn out another pair of my oldest sandals, dubbed this year’s “garden sandals” and am considering which pair will have the job next year.

There are big moments and tiny moments, moments that sneak up on you, moments you plan for, moments you anxiously await.  I had a crazy busy week at work, overbooked myself socially, and fell into bed last night early.  My husband had a routine week. After months of planning and outfitting and practicing, our oldest son and his girlfriend will start their first season of bow hunting today.  We are waiting patiently to hear our youngest son has completed his Pacific Crest Trail through hike.  The sun comes up, the day proceeds, the sun goes down.

Today, in this moment, the sun is rising in a completely different place than last week.  It is shining through different pine trees.  While I sit here, at the same moment, a few geese went honking by and the humingbirds approached the feeder.  The hummingbirds are still, in this moment, dancing and chirping.  The first squirrel of the day has arrived.  The robins are gone (that we can tell).  The geese have been flocking up, and it will be quite a few months until the dark-eyed junkos arrive. We probably won’t be sitting out on the patio for very long periods of time then.

Sunrise, Sunset

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Once again yesterday it was time to back my pictures up.  Not to the cloud, because that happens automatically, but also to my laptop.  Amazingly, I have survived taking pictures with just my phone since our first digital camera died many years ago.  We talk about getting a new camera, but 12,500 + pictures later, I am still using my phone.

The upside to using my phone is that all my pics are super accessible.  I can share them at will – or save them to the blog folder!  The down-side is that I get lazy.  It’s so convenient, and they get backed up to the cloud, so I let it go far too long between backing up to our hard drives.  Today was the day.

As with many procrastinated things, there was not an easy way.  I had too many photos to simply plug in my phone and download.  A workaround was in order, so I set about finally trying to figure out how to upload from the cloud.  Many tries and two app downloads later, I learned that a sync was my best option.  Hours later, the sync is now done.  Next weekend I’ll tackle the download to the external hard drive.

Today’s pics were an unexpected catch.  I was getting ready to leave for work and noticed that one of the white squirrels was on the front feeder.  That little acrobat!  And then I looked and saw the other white squirrel was on the back feeder!  It’s been around a week since we saw them together.

 

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Last fall and winter we had a squirrel who was coming to eat who had a gorgeous tail.  Obviously well fed and good genes.  We assume he has expired because he has not been around for quite a while.  But he has a protege 🙂  A beautiful (and well fed) one.

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“Because sometimes doing nothing leads to the best something” – from Christopher Robin movie

There is so much going on at once right now in the garden.  The last cream daylily bloomed today.

20180809_084139-1“Twins” are abounding.  (More about that and pics in days to come).  I saw a very young (probably a baby) cardinal in our Linden tonight.  Both white squirrels showed up this morning.  (I only could catch one in the pic below, through the foggy window this morning.)

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The last bloom of the two ‘Just Plum Happy’ daylilies in one area bloomed today.  (Still more blooming in another area.)  The ‘Patriot’ hostas have finished blooming.  Some of the daylilies have started to set seed.  (More about that in an upcoming blog, or two.)  The Weigelia is reblooming.

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But the best part of today was that it was my Mom’s birthday.  I took the day off work and we spent the day together – coffee and pastry at Caribou, shopping, a movie, more shopping, and dinner.  The movie we saw was Christopher Robin.  We both absolutely loved it.  It brought back so many memories.  And the line we both loved most was “Because sometimes doing nothing leads to the best something.”  That’s how a good garden day feels.  Just enjoying “being” in the garden, and then you see this, and that, and putter around, and before you know it you are quite content.

Nothing going on here. Just checking out this branch!

Today we were away from home most of the day.  When we got home close to sunset we saw this guy.  He turned around mid-meal for this “pose”.

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Yesterday a neighbor couple came over to see the garden.  They asked how we keep the squirrels off the feeders.  When Sandy isn’t visiting, clearly, we don’t 😏  One feeder is closer in to the tree.  Most of the time the birds have both feeders, but when one of the squirrels comes by, they almost always stay to the back feeder.

 

There’s gotta be a little rain sometime

Today was an off and on rainy day.  I got about 3 minutes in the garden tonight before it started pouring rain.

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I was also a little bummed it was a rainy evening because today the last two ‘South Seas’ daylily buds bloomed.  They go way too fast, but their huge gorgeous blooms are such a treat, and when there are multiple blooms together it is delightful.  Here’s what it looked like a few days ago.

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After the rain, we had quite a few visitors to the garden so that was fun.  We tried to capture from inside the house.   It’s a bit grainy, but you get the idea …20180801_180525-1

 

Easy eating

A while ago we got a huge bag of sunflower seed hearts.  We started putting them in one of the feeders.  The birds (and squirrels) went nuts.  Easy eating!  They are nice because there are no shells left behind to clean up, no black oiled sunflower seed shell chemical to kill plants, and no sunflowers growing in the grass under the tree.

The hearts are, understandably, more expensive, but there is at least twice the actual food.

We picked up a second bag on our garden store shopping trip Saturday.

Despite the easy eating, some seeds must still make it to the ground.  The neighborhood bunny starts making the rounds about 8:00 each night.  He usually gets here around 10 pm.  Tonight we got an early visit.  I had to zoom and be stealthy to get this pic.

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Nice long drink

Today when I got home there was a small squirrel under the tree.  He did not look familiar.  He might be quite young.  I didn’t go outside and soon he was on the feeder.  I went to go relax and came back to find him – face in the bird bath.  He drank for the longest time and then headed back to the tree.  Time to go out and fill up that water.

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