Tangled Branches: Cultivated
happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Random Thoughts
Remember just a few weeks ago how I was whining about how cold and wet it was? Now it's too hot. And we could use some rain. Everything dries out in a hurry in the heat. I set up my copper sprinkler on some of the newer plantings in the woods this afternoon. This isn't much of a serious sprinkler, but more a decorative item (cheap and easy substitute for a fountain). Almost as soon as I turned it on, the songbirds came by to see what was going on and to get cooled off. I let the seed feeder go empty because I wanted to encourage the grackles to move on, and all the other birds dispersed too. The sprinkler brought them back for a short while.
I've seen baby bunnies in the yard the last couple of days. Sunday, the crows were squawking at something, and soon I saw a hawk fly just above the trees with something small and brown in its talons. Didn't get a good look, but did see a baby bunny again on Monday, so if that's what it had, it didn't get them all. The bunnies are so cute when they're little and although they do some damage in the garden, it's tolerable.
What is not going to be tolerable is when the deer show up. We've been seeing them lately during our morning walks in the woods behind the house and I think it's just a matter of time. The patch of woods around the stream valley in back of the house isn't all that large and seeing deer back there used to be a rare thing. They keep getting squeezed into smaller and smaller habitats around here - all the remaining woods are being cleared for housing. And the developers are no longer leaving some of the trees intact the way they used to. Just bulldoze everything, and pack the houses as close together as they can. Or worse yet, townhouses or condos. More people, more cars, more pollution. I was out driving today and starting thinking "Gee my windshield must be really dirty", then realized that no, that's just the air - brown and thick. Maybe we'll get a good downpour and wash the air clean for a while again (...ending where I started this post...).
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Tangled Branches: Cultivated, main page