Build Your Nest Here! X

Spring is here!  :D  I'm so excited!  Springtime's new life and birds and colors and blossoms and planning for a garden are some of the only things that can penetrate my darkness even a little these days.  So I'm throwing what energy I have into enjoying it.

I have a whole list of projects for birding and gardening I've been wanting to work on that, to me, say, "Yay Spring!"  This is the first I've gotten to (just hung yesterday), a little happy welcome to the birdies.

For some time now I have been seeing blog posts, pins. and DIY tutorials on offering nesting materials to birds looking to nest-build.  I love this idea, cause I am a huge birding fan and just adore those who nest in and visit my feeders.  I kinda took a little from each source and came up with my own thing.

MY MATERIALS:

*cat fur (been collecting for a while now)

*feathers naturally lost from my budgies

*small fabric scraps (Color is an eye-catcher!)

*little pieces of smooth hemp twine (frayed hemp can endanger toes and feet)

*bits from nature- dried leaves left from fall, small twigs, and dried moss

*empty suet cage

CAUTION: I kept all pieces of string-like material under 6".  I avoided using string/thread except for a tiny piece here and there, and made sure it wasn't tangled.  When all knotted or bound together, thread can catch in birdy feet and cause serious harm.  :/  I played it a little more cautious than the articles I read suggested, just to be safe!

INSTRUCTIONS: 

*Mix all of your goodies together- whee!

*Fit into cage, and close it up well.  

*Look for a place outdoors to hang it, preferably where birds will see it in their everyday travels.  Here is where using some brightly-colored fabric scraps is helpful! 

*Hang in a secure place.

*Watch birdies visit to nab fancy bits for their nests!  Maybe later in the Spring you'll even see a nearby nest with spots of color from your contribution!

Here are links to the articles I mainly used:
"Offer Nesting Materials For Birds" from Empress of Dirt
"Other Ways to Attract Birds" from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology
"The First Day of Spring" from Juniper Moon Farm

I'd love to hear about your experiences with this!  I'll update on mine (hopefully I'll have some).

On the Web: Here Little Birdie...

I. Love. Birds. I love watching them in the wild, learning their calls, looking at pictures, and hearing about bird encounters. I find such simple pleasure just closing my eyes and listening to the bird cacophony around my home, identifying those I know and appreciating those I don't. Just outside my window, I have created a mini feeding station among some pine trees where my kitty and I can watch for hours. Yesterday, within the span of an hour, I had eight different types of birds visit! :) It makes me so happy to have given these visitors a safe place to eat and mate and drink. It's a source of much joy.

For birdwatching on the Web, there are some incredible sites out there for bird and nature lovers. Here are my go-to sites for getting a birdy fix.


Websites and Facebook Pages:

"All About Birds": Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Warblers Call

WeLoveBirds.org

Outside My Window: WQED Bird Blog

Birds & Blooms Magazine


Favorite Live Cams:

Phoebe, a Hummingbird Nest Cam

Bald Eagle Nest

Falcon Cam in Pittsburgh

Great Blue Heron Nest


DIY Birding:

Make Your Own Feeders

Bird Photography Tips

Tips for a Bird-Friendly Backyard

Best Backyard Bird-Feeding Practices


Get Involved:

Pennsylvania eBird

Participate in NestWatch

Great Backyard Bird Count

Create a Certified Wildlife Habitat

Projects I'd Love to Make: In the Garden

With the early warmth and sunshine this year, everything is growing already! Thus, my gardening lust has begun just as early. :) With the need to wait until May to throw myself into planting flowers and veggies, I am indulging in planning fun garden projects instead. Here are some of the DIYs we are either planning or fantasizing about for this year:

PLANNING: We've got all of the materials for the pots below, and are on the hunt for some good pallets! :)








THINKING ABOUT IT:






FANTASIZING:

In the Garden- An Update

September weather is my absolute favorite, although this year there seems to be a lot more rain. The mild temperatures and sun feel wonderful as the Autumnal Equinox approaches! As we move toward autumn, many green things in my yard are slowly ending their life cycle, including a few things in my garden. Many others are still in full, happy growth! :)

Late last week I fertilized the garden again, pulled weeds, and clipped/neatened veggies and herbs. Our porch flowers are thriving, with new blossoms daily and pops of color to brighten our home!


Tomato in the morning sun.


Happy Growth:

~Tomatoes! Both tomato plants are still blossoming, and there are plenty of baby tomatoes on each. They are a bit smaller than in later summer, but still vibrant in flavor, color, and deliciousness! This weekend I spent a while staking and re-staking the new growth!

~Eggplants! Well, it seems the purple eggplants we expected are not purple at all. Our little round, globe eggplants turned yellow and remained the size of eggs! Turns out we have an heirloom called Thai Yellow Eggplants! lol We have been collecting them, but haven't yet tried to eat any. There are loads of new blossoms and baby Yellows on our plant, which keeps on growing full and beautiful.

~Wildflowers! My very late planting of wildflowers is showing it's first buds! Alyssum is flowering and the Zinnias have their first blossoms. Can't wait to see what color they will be!


Zinnia!


Winding Down:

~Beans! Our bean patch is definitely on its last stems, and the leaves are growing worn, thin and brown. There are still some flowers and baby beans, but they stop growing at just an inch or so and become soft.

~Greens! The few more mature lettuces we have left are no longer producing new leaves, or their leaves stay small. We had to pull many that were bolting. We have new lettuces that I planted a couple of weeks ago. These have been thinned, but many remaining bolted this past weekend and had to be pulled. Those that are left are looking a little... wobbly and uncertain. :/ The spinach I planted along with the lettuce a couple of weeks back didn't make it. After two days of splattering rain, our new sprouts were smashed. The two that lived haven't grown at all, and one died this past weekend.


And in Other News:

~Carrots! Hmmm... Though we have gorgeous carrot greens that continue to grow, the few I have uprooted to check progress have had teeny, thin roots. :( Looks like another year without a happy carrot harvest. We will have to investigate what could have caused this, as last year's carrots, though small and short, were actually edible and tasty!

~Herbs! Most are looking great! We have some new dill and cilantro that needs some growth time before starting to harvest. We have pretty much depleted our basil- it's no longer replenishing after cuts.

~Broccoli! We've got about 12-14 broccoli seedlings growing! They've been thinned out a couple of times. Having never grown broccoli and never fall crops, I'm not sure what to expect. They are still looking pretty spindly (photo below).


Baby broccoli. Hoping for a fall harvest...

Backyard Visitor: Awesome Spider!

This incredible spider was hanging out on our window screen the other day, resting and bug catching from a beautiful circular web! She was huge (the size of a quarter with legs all extended- yikes!), with brilliant, hairy orange legs banded in white and black and a bulbous body patterned in yellow and black. I looked her up online and identified her as a spider called a Marbled Orb Weaver. Stunning!

Here's the picture of our visitor, slightly unclear since the photo was taken through the window screen. Below that is a photo from the internet.

Zucchini Squashed, Tomato Hope- Garden Updates

Updates on my gardening hopes and dreams: Sometimes they fall hard.

~Zucchini squashed! I recently attempted to hand-pollinate zucchini blossoms after weeks and weeks of flowers with no veggies. My squash plant is now dead. I discovered it collapsed into a sad, droopy heap one morning. :(

~Tomato hope! The heirloom tomato plant that had grown super skinny and tall and was losing branches had a turn for the better! I noticed that the bottom of the plant began growing new branches a few weeks ago. I decided to give the top part of the plant a specified time to see if it would do the same. When it didn't, I sacrificed the few tomatoes growing there and lopped the whole, long, skinny part of the plant off at the base. The new branches are healthy and full and sprouting lots of blossoms (see photo below, tomato plant closest to camera)! We ended up letting the tomatoes ripen that were growing at the top of the plant before I pruned it, and they were delish! Hoping for more to come! :D

Our second tomato plant (toward back of picture below) has loads of fruit, and after our most recent fertilizing they look bigger and plumper than ever. Our first from this plant were also delicious!























~Green stuff! Our green beans and most of our herbs have continued to produce!

~New crops planted! The seedlings of our very first fall crops are growing: broccoli, spinach, lettuce & dill and cilantro. A hard downpour and hail damaged some of our spinach, but we still have some. The herbs have their first "true" leaves, and I thinned the lettuce and broccoli some just yesterday.

I Am Mother Nature- Garden Update

At least I had fun pretending to be when I hand pollinated a flower for the very first time! :)

After investigating the possible reasons behind having loads of zucchini flowers but no zucchini, we realized that the very few bees we have seen this year may mean our blooms have not been getting pollinated. I decided I had to become a pollinator. I studied pictures of male and female zucchini flowers and read about how to transfer pollen via Q-tip and waited through several mornings watching for open flowers. Yesterday morning I peeked out to see a big, fat blossom smiling at the sunshine. I grabbed a Q-tip & ran to the garden in my cat PJs. :)

The open flower was a male, but there were no other blooms open. I carefully peeled open some flowers that were ending their life cycle but hadn't fallen off the plant yet. All males. Then I found one that hadn't opened at all yet! I carefully peeled away the flower petals from the top and peered inside- a female! I gently swabbed the male flower with a Q-tip until it was pollen-coated, and inserted it into the unopened female bud and swirled it around to transfer the pollen. MOTHER NATURE! :D Just out there watering a few minutes ago, and there are some new buds ready to open tomorrow. You can bet I will be out there with swabs in hand in the morning! :)

My pollen-coated cotton swab post-transfer. :)

More Updates:

~Our green beans and most of our herbs have continued to give us yummy, fresh things to eat. Our lettuce suffered in the recent heat wave and hasn't given us much. We cut it way back and are hoping for good stuff soon.

~Tomato plants: One of our heirloom tomato plants is still struggling. An entire branch died, leaving the two tiny tomatoes that were growing on it in peril. We picked them and will harvest the seeds for next year. There are still two tomatoes growing on it, and it looks as though the plant may be able to sustain these to maturity! Our other plant seems to have stabilized- yay! There are lots of baby tomatoes and some blossoms, and we had our very first little heirloom pink tomato in a grilled cheeze! Delish! After more reading about the bolting plants, we are thinking that perhaps we don't have quite enough light for the garden after all.

~Golden raspberry. I found out that plants don't fruit until the second year. Berries next summer! :)

~Our rogue pumpkin plant died! Suddenly and completely! :{

~Planted new seeds! We decided to go for our very first fall harvest, and after some cleanup, pruning, weeding, and transplanting made room for broccoli, spinach, lettuce, and dill & cilantro. YAY!

More later!

This Year's Garden- Good Eats & Challenges

Gardening continues to be one of my true loves, and like love the garden yields joys and challenges in equal opportunity. :)

















My sweet little niece stopped by to labor in the garden for a while with me. :) She's a dirt-y girl after my own heart.


JOYS: Our harvest so far

~Abundant mint and sage bunches, shared happily with neighbors
~LETTUCE- we love fresh salads, and so do our Budgies
~Fresh Herbs (pronounced with the "h" in honor of global friends- heehee):
*fresh dill and basil and mints make our green salads spicy and vibrant
*crushed basil and oregano sprinkled on our pizza after the oven add pizzazz
*chives sprinkled into pasta salads and potato salad make both savory and delish
*peppermint and spearmint make wonderful tea and lemonade
~Green beans- T likes them raw, I prefer them lightly steamed. :)

CHALLENGES: This year's conundrums

~Tomato plants that are shooting skyward instead of bushing out. I guess we didn't prune as we should have early on, given the huge growth spurts that happened with the loads of rain and humidity. Lots of re-staking to keep up. There may also be an issue of not enough sunlight, but our neighbors' tomoatoes last year in the same area did well. Looks like one plant is struggling a little more and may not make it. :(

~Lots of blossoms, but no fruit on the zucchini. There have been so many big, beautiful blossoms that I was sure we would be eating loads of delish zucchini. For some reason, though, we haven't had a single fruit! All flowers, nothing growing in their place. :/ I have no idea why.

~Figuring out the golden raspberry. So far it's not doing much as far as growth, and I've never grown berries.

~Nibbling on some of our leaves and herbs by pests, especially the basil and sage. I haven't been able to find the little culprits like in years past, but I keep hand-inspecting. Today I noticed that whole leaves of the basil were eaten.

~Fickle herbs. Our cilantro plant and dill bolted after two weeks. :( This is my first dill (I love it), but I have yet to have success in keeping cilantro all summer. I just recently read it prefers to be sown directly in the garden soil, so I will try that over replanting seedlings. Rosemary is stunted, so we are uprooting from the garden and putting it in its own pot so it can stay dryer.

PLANS: Fall Planting

Reading up on some ways to make a garden more efficient reminded me that it's time to plant now for fall crops! Just got beautiful organic seeds in the mail from Homegrown Healthy on Etsy: broccoli, spinach, more lettuce, and herbs (can't hurt to give those another go, right?). I may just grow the herbs in pots so I can bring them indoors for winter.

Stay tuned for updates. :)

Hanging On

During one of our recent crazy-wind-whirling-debris-flash downpours, we spied this little nutty buddy hanging on for dear life to a huge tree in our yard. His ears were back, his fur soaked and dripping, and he was getting pounded and drenched by heavy drops and runoff. Why he didn't seek shelter and chose to cling desperately to the tree for the duration of the storm is a mystery. Seems like there should be a lesson in there somewhere. :)

Garden!

Yesterday, we had our first green bean harvest from this year's crop! Delicious, sweet, crunchy beans lightly steamed with a touch of vegan butter. YUM!



Past years' gardening adventures didn't lead to very satisfying results. If you followed my posts last summer, you may remember we had our soil tested by the local cooperative extension and had been trying for years to build up the soil with compost, rototilling, planting, fertilizing. Not much success, and lots of hard work and heart invested to see very disappointing crops.

This year we decided to opt for raised beds, after seeing our upstairs neighbors have some positive results last year. We used our neighbors' bed from last year and built two additional 4x4' beds where our bed was last in years past. We used untreated wood to build our boxes, lined the space of each with grass clippings, then a layer of compost, then loads of organic soil (we purchased bags). I'm delighted to share that growth has been explosive since we planted at the very end of May! YAY!

Here are some pictures taken just after our first planting:

















Herbs and greens! The sage, mint, one dill plant, and chives showed up from last year.



















Our new raised 4x4' beds. So cute!


















Two heirloom tomatoes in the back (one red, one pink- wish I could find those name cards- doh!). Beans and eggplant in front.

















Zucchini, golden raspberry, and carrots in front!


And just 1 month later- we couldn't believe the growth! Have a look! We swear these photos have not been altered, and all growth is hormone- and steroid-free. :)






































































Here's our garden today (below), just after a fresh composting, weeding, staking, and watering. Tomatoes newly supported from fallen tree branches, squash caged happily, beans growing around expanded poles, carrots thinned. Dill and cilantro, as well as a lettuce and chard plant lost. We added a rogue pumpkin plant that had sprouted among the oregano- gave it its own spot among the greens. Lots of tomatoes, several eggplants, lots of squash blossoms but so far no squash. Excited at the prospects!

Needless to say, we are thrilled, and tending and watching our little veggies and herbs grow every day adds sweet little jolts of peace and joy to my day. :)

Spring Baby!

Passing the park near my house on a walk home from an errand the other day, I spotted this mama deer venturing out of the woods with her darling little spotted fawn, so young she was still quite clumsy and slow. It was sooo sweet to see her investigate a bird, which she followed around for quite a while, plop down in the grass for a rest, and trying to keep up with her mama. :) I squealed the whole 10 minutes I watched them! Forgive the poor photo quality- I only had my Blackberry with me! With the video, my camera work is all over the place, too- watch and you'll get the jist of it. Not sure WIH I was doing. lol

Backyard Visitor: Squee Baby Bun!

Eensy little bun visiting one of our Lily of the Valley patches! A baby of the bun I posted about last week? I bet his little head smells like sweet flowers! :)

Backyard Visitors- Spring Arrivals!

The past couple of weeks and the warmer weather has brought out all sorts of furry and feathered visitors to our yard. :)

The first bunny sighting of the year happened yesterday(we told her she was a day late, but she didn't seem very concerned).

We've said good-bye to the darling Dark-eyed Junco that spet the winter with us. But the Cardinal pair that returns to us every year is back and we have new residents! A sweet pair of Titmice returns each evening, as does a pair of Nuthatch (I'm pretty sure) who has moved into our pine tree. :) And several types of woodpeckers have made an appearance. I love spring!
















Bye little Juncos!














These Titmice photos are kinda crappy, but its so hard to get pics of them- they flit around so fast! Plus I always seem to get to my camera too late! :/ Look in the tippy top upper left corner of this one to see this little one...

















Another Titmouse! So cute. I love their little plumes!


















Our newest residents- I am pretty certain they are Nuthatch!