Friday morning, bright and early, we woke up to a Great Gray Owl sitting on our garden fence. Looking for mices. Good birdie!!!!
The first thing Spring means is birdwatching. Yesterday we took a drive down to the southern edge of the county in which we live (we’re at the far northern border). Saw a wide variety of species, some of which were almost close enough for decent pictures (at least for identification purposes, anyway.)
Also saw our first Black Bear of the season, a pretty little cinnamon colored bear. That answered the question – are the bears up and around? Yes. Good thing we took down the seed feeders already.
Stately, swimming around in a quiet bay on the lake was one of many Canada Goose we saw during the day, in the fields, on the water, in the air. These are the earliest of all the waterfowl to return to this area, some arriving with snow still on the ground. It doesn't seem to faze them at all. Must be all that goose down!
Another early bird, a Mallard. I liked the green relfections from his shiny head in the ripples.
One of the most beautiful of all North American ducks is the male Wood Duck. He's gorgeous and he knows it.
A pair of Redheads. He's keeping close by his sweetie, following her lead.
A Coot. These are an extremely common bird anywhere within their range. This one appears to be admiring his own reflection in the water. Or wondering, "Who IS that???"
A Lesser Scaup. When the sun hits their head at the right angle to the viewer, their head is a deep rich dark purple, irridescent, with a point on top of their head. The punk look in duck fashion.
A male Bufflehead - Dan calls these Bubbleheads. He was pretty far away from us, and wouldn't cooperate with coming closer.
A male Ruddy Duck. One of the cutest of all ducks.
Here he is showing off his tail and looking back over his shoulder to see if she is properly impressed. She didn't flee, so apparently she was impressed.
An Outback in it's natural environment, in the woods, looking for birds. Dan was going back to fetch our hats as it was really bright sunshine. And WARM. Spring!
We were on the lookout for White-headed Woodpeckers. We have seen them there frequently but this day we didn’t luck out. Boo.
This particular woods is all Ponderosa Pine, very open with not much in the way of brush. It borders a river with a wide flood plain, great habitat for all sorts of cool birds.
A really big nest in a tree across the river from us. We didn't see anybody at home and we speculated as to who might have built this nest - hawk, Osprey, Eagle....
Then we noticed a white head over the edge of the nest, watching us watching her. So, she was home, and she was busy.
Other birds that were new for the year but that didn’t come close to cooperating for a picture were an Osprey, Long-billed Curlew (a really good one for the list!), Common Loon (an adult and three juveniles), Hooded Merganser, Yellow-headed Blackbird, Barrow’s Goldeneye, White-crown Sparrow, Vester Sparrow, Shoveler, Cliff Swallow, Rough-wing Swallow, Horned Grebe, Canyon Wren, Rock Wren, Cedar Waxwing, Green-wing Teal, Vesper Sparrow. Plus lots of other species we’d already seen this spring. It was a good day of birding.
No hummingbirds yet, but any day now. We already put up two feeders so that they have something to eat as soon as they arrive. There is nothing so guilt-inducing as a hummingbird looking in the windows and saying, “Hey, come on, man.”
The second thing that means Spring is Gardening. We resumed our endeavor to have a garden that would survive in a plant-predator laden environment.
Plan 1 was to put pots on a deck well off the ground. That lasted less than 24 hours.
Plan 2 was to build a fence and try to cope with rampant weeds and rabbits small enough to fit through the fence, and pocket gophers attacking under the ground. Some plants survived, some got mowed down and it is yet to be seen if they survived. We did keep the deer out of the garden, and the bear didn’t come in because there was nothing inside worth the bother.
Plan 3 commences. Last weekend was busy for our friend Jack, who was building the next part after the patios were built in the arbors.
Our neighbor Snowy is a stone mason and he built concrete paver floors in the rose and grape arbors. This is the southeast corner showing the rose arbor and the gate entry into the garden.
Dan and our friend Jack arriving at the garden to do the measuring for the raised-beds-to-be. This is the southwest side of the garden.
The northeast corner of the garden. This is where an apple tree, cherry three, blueberry plants, gooseberry plant, grapes, and two Josta Berry plants live. All the plants are hard to see in the midst of all the grass, which is one of our issues to deal with in the garden.
The northwest corner of the garden has another apple tree, cherry tree, more grapes, red currants, another gooseberry, and blueberry bushes, and more weeds and grass.
Behind the grape arbor we planted two more grapes, three more Josta Berry bushes, and there may be a Rhubarb plant alive back there. No green leaves yet on any of our plants so we are still waiting. Today is supposed to be really warm, so things may pop out.
These are the boards Jack brought. 2x12 rough cut cedar, very heavy. The raised beds will be two boards high, so a depth of soil near two feet deep, for some of the vegetables that like having room to go deep. This translates to a lot of heavy work.
After Snowy built patios in the arbors, the lattice no longer reached the ground on all sides in the arbors. It did before he made it level. There is a moral there somewhere but not sure what it should be.
To help cope with the exceedingly vigorous and tall (like five feet tall), grass, we put down landscaping cloth, overlapping. We are using the Ranger to haul things to the garden, down the hill. It is earning it's place in our lives with this heavy work.
We will eventually cover the entire garden area with landscape cloth, and put bark mulch everywhere to help hold down the weeds.
Here are the first boards for the raised beds being laid where they will be built.
The landscape cloth was pretty nicely laid out before we started walking around on it, and then the wind came up. Oh well.
On the bottom of the raised beds is 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch galvanized wire mesh, fairly heavy gauge so it will last at least as long as the cedar boards do on the raised beds. Cutting the wire was my job while Jack was cutting all the boards and moving them into the garden. Dan drove the Ranger, many trips up and down the hill. It was a very busy weekend. Then on Wednesday this last week Jack came back and finished the raised beds. Next step is to fill them with dirt, approximately 36 cubic yards of dirt.
Walking down to the garden from the house, the black landscape cloth is pretty much hidden by the raised beds.
Sitting in the grape arbor looking at the raised beds and thinking about how much work it is going to take to fill them. Then the fun can begin.
Snowy is going to put a concrete paver path between the two rows of raised beds. We’re going to have him build a shallower raised bed in the middle of the path from concrete blocks, for herbs and flowers.
Sitting in the arbor, the overall slope of the garden is pretty obvious, but having a level path in the middle of the garden is really going to anchor it visually.
View from the chairs looking up. Someday it would be neat to see grape leaves shading the arbor.
The Aspens are starting the spring off looking very much as they ended the fall. White and bare. But while you can't see them in this picture, that little grove is alive with birds of all sizes, bouncing around from branch to branch, and yelling about this, that, and the other thing.
The local heavy equipment company is bringing a backhoe with a blade that carries one yard of dirt, this next week (road weight restrictions allowing). In the old orchard area on the 20 acres above our house is deep soil, and we’re going to have them remove the sod and transport soil from up the hill down to be piled next to the garage. From there we will move it in 5-gallon buckets in the back of the Ranger and then put them into the raised beds. Think… ants. This will be a long process, but our neighbor has a 13-year old son who is six feet tall now and wanting to earn some money. He’ll do the digging and lifting, and Dan will drive him up and down the hill.
The third thing that says Spring is….
Chocolate covered strawberries.
Happy Earth Day.