The O-Zone

A beautiful day to head south for a day trip, picnic, and see what new birds have migrated this way.

A male Yellow-headed Blackbird. Wonder where they got that name? 🙂

Throwing back his head and singing his song as loudly as possible. Really into Spring!

I still remember the first time I ever saw these.  We were driving past a field of corn stubble when the entire field rose into the air, hundreds of Yellow-headed Blackbirds swirling around, flashing yellow, black, and white in their wings.  It was something worthy of Dali.  Their song is like a rusty gate moving back and forth in the wind.  But at least they look good singing it!

She is still sitting on her nest. There could be really small babies next to her. If her eggs haven't hatched yet, they will any day now. There is no way to know for sure as her nest is way above our heads. She was keeping a beady eye on us.

We added ten new species to our annual list; no new species but all ones we enjoy seeing and look for every year.

Lupin blooming in the shade of a Ponderosa grove, next to the river which is still in its high spring meltoff mode.

Balsam Root also in full bloom. This is one of the earliest wildflowers.

Not a bird….

This is a Pacific Rattlesnake, one of two we saw on the back road. This one was taking a nap in the middle of the road.

Lifting his head up for a better look before finally moving off the road.

This was the second of two rattlesnakes we surprised on the road.  This one wasn’t the least bit aggressive; it was sleepy and couldn’t figure out why we were wanting it to move off the road (we didn’t really want to run over it with the car).   It never rattled at us once.   We were throwing little pieces of grass at it to get it to move, which it finally did.

The first snake had a whole different attitude to being disturbed.  We heard it first, vigorously rattling, and we stopped walking and looked down.  About six feet from Dan was the snake, on the edge of the road and somewhat sheltered beneath some plants.  It went into an offensive coil, raising its head high above its body in an “S” and ready to strike if we moved closer, rattling vigorously the whole time.  It was holding its ground and telling us it wasn’t going to move.  So we continued walking past it and when we came back, the snake had moved along.  Both snakes were smallish, in the two foot long range.  They get much bigger.

It was interesting, such a difference in temperament between these two individuals.

The concrete paver walkway in the center of the garden is completed, except for cleaning off the pavers and brushing in the paver sand which fills the joints and locks everything in place.  Maybe today while the contractor is here I’ll go do that.

Walking into the garden through the rose arbor-to-be. The rose plants range in size from two inches tall to almost six inches tall. It will be many years before they cover the arbor with sweet smelling flowers of pink and red.

Looking back the other way from a seat in the grape arbor, the overall slope of the garden is obvious. The grape plants are also years away from covering the arbor.

This is actually a good thing, to have this slope running from east to west and the garden also rises up from south to north.   The neighbor who put in the pavers said it was like working in a house of mirrors, trying to get things level.

The raised beds will be able to take full advantage of the sun as it moves across the sky.  We have a bunch of flower pots to put on the walkway, for herbs and flowers of the annual sort.  Perennial flowers and herbs will go into one of the raised beds.

This gooseberry plant is the only one showing much in the way of leaves. Lots of other plants have buds showing but they haven't actually leafed out yet. We left plenty of room around this gooseberry so it can grow as large as it pleases.

This coming Tuesday the last of the bark mulch is being delivered, and the kids will be back to finish filling the raised beds with dirt.  That will take all week, most likely.  Then in a couple of weeks we can do more planting.  It was 27F this morning, well below what almost every seed we have will tolerate for planting purposes.

Today we get to have fun with a septic tank contractor.  Yesterday we narrowly averted a disaster of biblical proportions with our septic tank deciding to stop accepting water from the drains.  Fortunately I was only washing dishes at the time (had been planning on running the washing machine – ye gads).  We did a lot of manual digging, saving a couple of hundred dollars by locating the tank and uncovering the lids.  All the contractor has to do is to pump the tank, hopefully solving the problem in its entirety.  It isn’t the way we planned on spending the day – intending to go bird watching instead.  Oh well.

Today we spread most of the landscaping cloth and almost all the bags of bark mulch.  Roughly three fourths of the garden has been mulched now.  The kids were back today and they did so much work, it was simply amazing.

Most of the rabbit fencing is tacked up along the bottom of the main fence.

Strawberry plants are set in the first bed in this picture, and in the second long bed, already filled with dirt, other early season seeds were planted today.  Lettuce, radishes, carrots, spinach, cabbage, swiss chard, beets.  Only about one third of the bed has been planted.  In another couple of weeks, we’ll plant some more of these same seeds, and then in another couple of weeks another batch.  That will give us a longer harvest before it gets too hot for these sorts of plants.

Raspberry plants are all along this fence edge. Hardly any green leaves are showing, yet. But soon they should be visible.

Four blueberry plants, six red currants, and a gooseberry all share this space near the grape arbor. These berry bushes are all just barely showing buds. Now they won't have to compete with the grass and weeds, at least not as much.

Once we have spread the rest of the landscape cloth we have, and the last bags of bark mulch, we will be better able to figure out how much more we need to buy.  And then the kids can go back to being ants and filling the beds with dirt.  Hopefully all the infrastructure on the garden will be completed within the next couple of weeks, including the concrete paver path connecting the two arbor patios together.  And we will have some green leaves!

The excavator driver called this morning and said he would be here at 10 am or a bit later.  So when he showed up at 9:30 am, we weren’t exactly ready.  Didn’t take long to throw on jeans, heavy shirt, and hat.

First thing he did was remove some of the old fruit trees planted in the orchard area, and begin removing the sod to get to the top soil. We were happy to see it was the same dark black soil we have down by the house.

Dan drove the Ranger over to receive the first load of soil. The heavy equipment is too big to drive past the house and down to the garden; it just won't fit, but the Ranger fits fine.

Ready to drop the first load into the Ranger.

Dan watching the soil going into the bed of the Ranger, from a safe location where he wouldn't have a bunch of dirt dumped on his head. The seat got pretty dirty but is easily cleaned.

The blade holds a cubic yard of dirt, and the Ranger can hold most of it.

Dan hauled loads down to the garden site; the heavy equipment dumped it in a pile by the garage.  All in all Dan brought down about five cubic yards of dirt to the garden, and we have the equivalent of three dump truck loads in a huge pile by the garage.

Itsy-bitsy dump truck. We ended up shoveling out the bed almost completely before tilting it.

Me shoveling, and our neighbor's 13 year old son carried the buckets into the garden and dumped them into the raised bed. Amazingly enough (ha!), he could fill four buckets in the time it took me to fill one. Gosh, my hair is getting gray!

Ants at work.

We finished filling the first bed; second one is on the agenda for tomorrow.  That’s the two smallest raised beds, which are the future home of the strawberry plants we have in the fridge.  Each one holds almost four cubic feet of dirt.

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.

The stormy weather we’ve had so far this month has given us some really pretty skies right as the sun dips below the horizon. The temperatures keep dropping down in the low to mid 20’s, and then into the 40’s during the day, to go with rain and snow, depending on the time of day.

Turbulent clouds dropped an inch of snow overnight out of this storm, and then it all melted away by mid day. The moisture is good for the ground but the river may have some flooding this year as a result of all the spring storms.

We are expecting some warmer-ish weather next week, and we can start our garden project in earnest.  We have collected landscape cloth and hardware cloth to put below the raised beds we are going to build from 2×12 cedar boards, two rows tall, so the beds will end up being about 22″ deep.  Between the beds, the paths will have bark mulch for a ground cover, to keep the weeds under control and keep moisture in the ground as much as possible.  It is going to be a lot of work.  We’re also putting in a paving stone floor in the grape arbor in the middle of the garden.  That part of the project is the first to undertake this next week.

We are going to put a smaller wire mesh around the bottom of the garden fence, to keep the hares from coming through the fencing.  The adults can’t make it, but their babies can easily and they make a lot of babies this time of year.  A baby rabbit has to eat a lot to grow up fast.  Hopefully they will all stick with the abundant wild food outside of the garden, this year.  We’ll have to electrify the fence as well.

Munching the first new grass, below the windows in the sunroom.

This bunny didn’t mind me taking his picture out of the window, or watching him.  But when Mishkin hopped up on the windowsill and growled at him, that was all a bit much.  It was time to scamper off as fas as possible, back to the safety of the carport.  Mish thought that was exciting and he ran as fast as he could to the windows by the bird cages to see if he could spot the rabbit running.

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Obviously, Snowshoe Hares have a lot of influence over the weather gods.

In spring anticipation, we bought a utility trailer to help with the garden work we are planning. It's sitting in the snow looking very winter-ish today.

Some of us are happy about it.

Some of us aren’t.

"Global warming.... ,,,, ,,,,"

First day of Spring! Tra-la comes to mind.  Now maybe it will stop snowing.  At least it doesn’t stick around very long.

Spring migrants have been returning to the mountain and in the valley by the river. Mountain Bluebird, Western Bluebird, Spotted Towhee, Western Meadowlark (or as Dan likes to call them, Giant Junco – inside joke), Robin, Violent Green Swallow (they are tough little guys), Say’s Phoebee, Dark-eyed Junco.

And a new yard bird!

Playing that most favorite game shared by birds of every species... Peek-a-boo.

I’ve joined the ranks of bad bird pictures.  If they would sit still and stop hiding around behind tree trunks and branches, this would be so much easier.

Any guesses as to what this might be?  Dan says, “Oh sure, everybody will know this one!”  I’ll give a hint.  It’s called a Williamson’s Sapsucker.

Four weeks to Hummingbirds.  We bought a 25 pound bag of sugar to use for the hummingbird feeders.  It should last most of the summer.

Our new Outback. We decided that 17 years was long enough to keep the old Outback, though we find ourselves missing it. It was a really great car, and hopefully this one will last every bit as long.

What’s really neat about this new Outback and the Subaru Legacy GT we bought a couple of years ago is that the controls on the the inside of the car are the same between the two vehicles.  I love the color, Graphite Gray – it changes the way it looks depending on ambient light conditions.  This year when we want to go investigating some road way out in the middle of nowhere, we won’t need to worry about breaking down in the most inconvenient way possible.  Not that our other Outback ever did that to us, but at 17 years old it was really a matter of time.