Odds and ends

What a nice night the 4th turned out to be! We got home from spending time with dad and after doing chores, we lit all the tiki torches and sat outdoors on the deck and enjoyed the evening. We could hear fireworks going off all around us, but because of the trees, we didn't see a thing. It was so calm and cool out there. The temp got down to 65° before we came in and I read where it was supposed to get down in the low 50's later in the night! Almost unheard of for this area in July! I'm not complaining tho, it's been great for working out in the yard and garden.

One project we got done was to clean out, move and fix my old potting bench. It was the first thing Andy ever built for me and it's seen better days! It's got a lot of warped wood, the doors were almost falling apart and it was sitting rather cock-eyed from all the chipmunk excavation underneath it. So we moved it to the place Andy's grill had been sitting. The grill is now out on the new patio. Andy fixed it by putting some new screws into the floor boards, the doors and re-hinging the doors so they hung a bit better. I cleaned it all up and set some pots and birdhouses on it. It looks so cute and rustic! It's age doesn't hurt it a bit and in fact, it adds lots of charm.



I saw a couple goldfinches in the garden last night. It prompted me to get out the bird feeders and put some shelled, chipped sunflower seeds out for them. I love to watch them and hadn't seen them around lately, so had sort of forgotten to fill the feeders because they weren't around. Or was it that they weren't around because I had forgotten to fill the feeders? They are so pretty and fun to watch. Here are a couple of photos I took while they fed on a volunteer sunflower a few years ago.









I love beets!

I was thrilled to have harvested the first beets from my veggie beds yesterday. I gave the greens to the chickens, boiled them and slipped the skin off and they are all ready for either just some butter or maybe some pickling! I haven't decided. Maybe just plain buttered beets. However I fix them, I'm going to see if I can get Andy to try them while he's on a roll of eating strange, new, "nasty" veggies!



I hate beetles!

We have Japanese beetles again. Already. It seems like summer just gets going, things are looking great and then suddenly the horrid little creatures come and decimate my garden! I hate them and wish there was a cure for them without harming my worms, bees, hummers and other good birds and bugs. Oh well, maybe the sparrows are going to feed on them again this year. I was never so thrilled as I was when I saw a sparrow snatch up a beetle, take it to the neighbors roof and proceed to hammer away at that bug until it got thru the shell to the soft, I suppose edible, inner parts. I never really appreciated how wonderful sparrows were until seeing that! Here's a photo of a sparrow snagging a Japanese beetle off one of my roses. If you look closely you can see the beetle in it's mouth! Gooooood sparrow!