Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....
Ok, so maybe not an over abundance of anything remotely resembling excitement. Wouldn’t wanna disturb his nap! He loves to sack out in the sun room.
The flower garden by the front door is in full bloom at the moment.
Iris, Bleeding Heart, Oriental Poppy, and the poor chewed upon Rhododenron. The Daffodils are done, as is the Daphne.
Vivid yellow Iris. No idea what variety this is, the blooms are less than half the size of the purple ones.
Purple Iris, multiple blooms on each stalk this time around. It's amazing what feeding the plants will accomplish.
Oriental Poppies, even in shadow these are a brilliant, deep color.
The Bleeding Heart is huge this year, almost covering the iris next to it.
This Columbine hasn't been munched flat yet. The bunnies sniff around it, but so far, no taste tests. It's really just a matter of time, though.
While the flowers are faring well, the vegetable garden can’t say the same thing. First to go were the lettuce, swiss chard, and beet plants. Left alone were the spinach and cabbage plants, and I joked with Dan about what that meant.
Evidently, they were saving those for the second course.
We bought some floating row covers and put them over the top of the remaining Chinese Cabbage plants, and the beans. This seems to be helping so far, because they are still alive!
The weeds are ferocious though, and that is going to be a couple of years’ worth of work to get them under control.
The pocket gophers are starting work on the pepper plants. Where once a pepper plant was, now a pile of dirt exists. It will be interesting to see how long it takes them to eat all the peppers.
The other morning we had a new visitor running around on the sidewalk. Our sidewalk is a huge hit with the Chipmunks. They run races up and down. Much more convenient and fun than trying to wade through the grass. We couldn’t believe our eyes, though.
A baby Yellow-bellied Marmot! These guys live in the rocks, down the hill from us. He was standing on the sidewalk, "Wow, nobody told me the world was flat!" He kept running back and hiding under the deck outside the sun room.
This little guy has evidently been asked to find his own rocks for his home. Note the bare spot on his back where somebody bit him, to encourage him to move along and find his own place to live. These guys have one of the oddest lifestyles. They are awake and moving around from mid April, going back to sleep in late July, beginning of August. I told Dan I hoped he would find a home close by, and Dan’s comment was something along the lines of just what we needed was yet another rodent species in our yard. This was a good point.
Oh well, he’s still cute in a rodent sort of way, and I hope he fares well.
Lots of babies running around these days.
A White-tail doe and her fawn. The fawn doesn't weigh as much as Mishkin, though his legs are longer.
The cement wall behind the fawn is twenty-four inches tall, so that gives a really good scale for this little guy.
There was a bit of drama revolving around this fawn yesterday. We saw him in front of the sun room, creeping into the brush, and disappearing. They have amazingly protective coloration when they are still and laying down. There was no sign of the doe at all, and this baby is way too young to be on its own.
A few hours later, a Raven was circling around the patch of bushes, evidently not fooled by the protective coloration for our little fawn buddy. The Raven had a birds-eye-view of the baby hiding in the bushes. I asked Dan if the Raven would attack the baby, and he said, yes, even kill it if more Ravens showed up. I was ready to go do some protection duty, and asked Dan if he could chase the Raven away. Dan figured the Raven would laugh long and hard at our feeble attempts to make it do anything. The Raven did eventually leave,
Still no sign of the doe, and I fretted all afternoon. Then, about 8 hours after we first saw the baby creeping into his hiding place, the doe and fawn crossed the yard, the doe was licking her baby, and re-assuring it. Then they wandered off up the driveway. It was nice to see them reunited. We found it amazing that she would leave her baby alone that long, and that the baby would stay put where she told it to for so long.
Mish is now sleeping in my chair in the living room, so all is well up on the mountain.