elainegrey

This morning, young Carolina wrens in the "greenhouse" -- i saw one just fall of a shelf. No harm to the bit of fluff. They ended up nesting on the front porch in the hanging basket. One day i watered and a little later out shot a bird. And then at some point i was planning to take the basket down, turned it to peer in the nest and a wren peered right back. It seems the wrens have fledged in the past few days: Christine had noticed the clumsy hoppings around over the holiday.

Later in the morning a squirrel loped across the back "woodland garden" (oh, someday) and went up on the large stump. I think the salt we'd put there for the deer also attracted the squirrel.

Then, as i sat down to work, the young buck was in the front yard.

Yesterday, crooked ear (the doe) visited out my work window. When she started in on the (well nibbled) peppers i went out the front door to fuss. She knows she need not flee, but sauntered off to the corner of the yard and then melted into the woods.

* Quaker History Roundtable: 20th Century American Quakerism - 9 hours video of the proceedings available at this time.

* Carolina wrens apparently make multiple nest starts before deciding on one. There was nesting activity at the same time in a hanging basket at the front. I just saw one hop from the nest, so i hope that's their choice. Their territory is 1/2 - 3/4 acres per some random website, it's conceivable two pairs would be about the house, but i'll assume it's the same pair.

* The cardinals fledged over the weekend. Sure didn't look old enough to manage that on Friday! I'm hoping they fledged and it wasn't depredation. I haven't seen Slugger or Louisa for a bit. -- Wait, there they are, foraging out my window. Hmm. I suppose they could have guided the fledglings into the woods where there's more cover?

* We had a day lily bloom yesterday at lunch but it was eaten by the time we went out for the dog walk. I suspect the young buck that cantered by my view.

* The peanut plants that were on the corner were nibbled, but not the ones more bounded by marigolds.

* We had over two inches of rain last evening and overnight. Some of the corn and the poppies are knocked over. I'm hoping that they'll lift themselves, but i suspect i'll need to stake up the poppies and reset the corn.

* I'm not focusing on work as much as i expect of myself. Trying to be gentle and observe.

* [ETA] Personal email box management seems to be effective. Struggling to get a few things NOT marked as spam, but i think i've come up with effective sorting that keeps different response efforts segregated.

Watching Louisa & Slugger care for their three nestlings, i think it's impressive that Cardinals have such an easy time managing diaper changing. They feed the nestling and then carry of a little white sack of waste.

I wish i could be sure they were getting all the bugs from my garden.

Particularly the scarily large spider. (Although he's probably doing me some favors. *shudder*)

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In Carrie news, this morning she did some lunging at Luigi accompanied by a bark. Water bottle time. Now Christine's sure Carrie will never return to the front room.

I'm not sure how many deer i saw today. Just after lunch i looked up and a deer was grazing just outside my window. I was delighted and watched as she ate up a shrub i'm trying to kill and grazed on clover. Then she went and nipped up a plant i've been watching to find out what blooms it might have. The plant is going to have to go back to work on growing its reproductive organs again. (Some sort of aster, is what i expect.) I saw the deer stare down the eastern side of the house, so i went to another window and saw a second deer back in the glade. (So, two unique deer.) Then the first deer went to my corn. I went to the front porch and yelled, "Hay, that's my corn!" and the deer simply sauntered out of the patch. Hmph.

Later, another deer was moving around the garden and looked like it was nibbling on the hibiscus. This time the deer was gone by the time i opened the front door. Same deer? A third?

And then later i saw a deer skirting along the north edge of the woods, slipping in to shadow at the corner -- and then another deer dashed into the same gap.

So possibly five deer, or two busy deer. The same pair we've caught grazing on the west side of the house, perhaps?

I've not seen deer moving around in the day since last summer. Today's attempt at research on deer movements didn't help explain why this might be a seasonal behavior. The best guess i could make would be that the deer are bedded down somewhere near by. One writer mentioned that the deer don't seem to stay bedded down for longer than two hours before getting up, stretching, peeing, and nibbling before going back to doze. Yet, why would they only be coming to the yard now? Unless the woods are TOO much of a thickety-mess to manage in the summer?


Cardinal still nesting. A couple visits from Luigi to my work table today. The volunteer tomato plants in the raised beds look like they may actually be quite productive. The most sprawling plant clearly is one of those grape tomatoes. I hope it does well!

Hoping things will even off after the last bump on our home calendar last night. My travel and other disruptions are now over, and the horizon reveals some pleasures. Friday i will go on a road trip with my parents (or my Dad, at least). And i realized that we can make it to the eclipse without the trip funds we had begun to set aside, but spent on the move. Not to the Tetons, but the path of totality isn't that far away. I've gotten a hotel room for us in the western part of the state, twenty minutes from the path. I've picked out an ideal location, now need to figure out weather patterns and what fall back locations might look like.