Birds!!!

I was sitting there in my chair Saturday afternoon.  It had been raining off and on all day.  I wanted to do a little bit of work outside, so I got up to check and see if it were still raining.  Much to my surprise, I found a pair of indigo buntings in my drive way.

I managed to get a half way decent picture of them before someone drove down the road and scared them off.

 Even better, I saw one of them in my back yard Sunday morning.  I'm thinking they might be nesting somewhere in the area.  I hope so.  Indigo buntings are one of my favorite birds.

Speaking of birds, when I was planting my marigolds Thursday, I got buzzed by a hummingbird.  I quickly filled and hung my feeders, but alas, within a few hours, the ants had found them.  Drat.  I did a bit of research online and found several suggestions on how to deal with them.  Some of them were to smear Vaseline on the hanger, or wrap the feeder with duct tape, sticky side out.  I was afraid these might be harmful to hummingbirds, so I decided the best way to deal with them was to add an ant moat to my feeder.  Instead of ordering one online and waiting for it to arrive, I MacGuyvered my own from the bottom of a water bottle.

I cut off the last few inches, smoothed the edges with a hot iron, and put some caulking around the hanger to seal it.  When the caulk sets, I'll fill the moat with water and hang it.  The ants crawl down the wire and drown in the moat, leaving the nectar pure for the birds.

I'm still working on getting all the plants I bought planted.  I finally got most of my impatiens into these window boxes.  I have two like this

and this smaller one.

I put a fresh coat of paint on the baker's rack Beverly gave me, but because it has rained so much, I wanted to give it an extra day to dry before I put it out.  Probably not necessary, but what would it hurt?

I still have a few impatiens I need to plant, but I've run out of planters.

I'm going to try to come up with something unconventional.  My next door neighbor had planted some plants in old boots, and it was really cute.  I want to come up with something like that.  It makes me wish I hadn't thrown out my old work boots.

Finally, if you've been reading my blog, you'll know I've been waiting with baited breath for my roses to start blooming.  I'd said they were going to explode with color when they finally opened.  Well, guess what greeted me when I got home from work today?

Yep, and absolute explosion of color.

That's not even half the buds opened.

The good news is, I found that they bloom on new growth, so this fall, I can really cut them back and clean them up.  If I get some of the thicker clumps thinned out, they ought to really bloom well next year.

Now, I need to get the gardenias planted, and that's all I'm going to do for this year.  Well, except for mulching everything, that is.