MONDAY'S MUSINGS--SINGING UP THE SUN

One of my favorite things to of a morning is sit outside with a cup of coffee and watch my world brighten as the sun rises. It centers me and fills me with peace and contentment. I can face my day much better fortified by morning sun and birdsong. 

Granted, sometimes the sun is rising before I do, but most mornings I watch the ribbons of sunlight embrace my world to the accompaniment of hundreds of birds. My flying flowers. They sing up the sun, you know. You hear the liquid warble of the Red Wing Blackbirds, the raucous cry of the crows, the inquisitive queedle-queedle of Blue Jays calling out, and the piercing call of various hawks looking for breakfast. I have a front row seat. There's nothing like watching a hawk drop like stone in the field across the way and the magnificent play of wings as they back swing stretching their talons out to grab their breakfast--mostly mice, unwary squirrels on the ground, and the occasional rabbit. We have a series of tall hills surrounding that field and if you look closely you can see their nest high up in one the oaks, pines, or even woven in a bare lightening struck tree.

In the yard I have several feeders. You'll hear the soft coo of the doves long before they fly in to eat. Proper little puffs of gray wandering under the feeders picking up sunflower seeds and chortling to each other. Bright flashes of yellow finches and those of softer yellow green of the females, a few pairs of rosy finches. Lots of Cardinals. I have a few large red headed woodpeckers that feed early morning and again in the afternoon. They eat sunflower seeds but I also put out peanuts for them and the Jays. Since the spring has been very cool I've kept the suet out for all. It seems they all have their assigned feeding times.

Blue Jay nest & eggs. wiki commons

When the Blue Jays decide to descend on the feeders everyone else leaves. Blue Jays don't like to share. They love oak trees, acorns are one their favorite foods (or at my house, cat food and dog food), and although they usually choose pines and cedar for nests, I discovered I have a pair nesting in the big oak out front. I spotted the tell tale signs of sticks, twigs, and this pair also grabbed strips of bright blue and yellow from our dog food bags to weave in. I've watched the male bring food to his mate sitting on the nest. Today, they both are flying to the nest and feeding the babies that just hatched. 

I love Mockingbirds and we have two very fine musicians on either end of the yard. One is nesting near my bedroom window and I love to listen to him sing throughout the day.

There's a lot of work ongoing at the McKye domicile. I sometimes wonder if we'll
ever catch up. We've been doing quite a bit of clearing of tree brush from the three trees we had to cut down. The pile was much larger than this before Dan went to work on it. We've also cleared a lot of deadwood piles from the tornado downed trees.

I've also been planting tomatoes and other veggies as well as flowers. My Iris and roses are going to be blooming together--which is rare. Rosebuds should be opening in the next couple of days. My cats seem to love the mulch and so it often looks like I'm planting cats as well. I love the look of the mulch, too, but I'm going to have to move some of it and lay down a black weed mat fit them around the existing plants to keep some of the persistent weeds from growing through the mulch.  Sigh...that's another job.







I've been doing a little bit of planting everyday. Going easy on the shoulder and on my work breaks I get outside in the sun and plant something. I'm like a sunflower soaking up the sunlight.






So what have you been doing this spring? Planting? Or just enjoying the sun?

                         

Winners of Carolyn Brown's e-books Liza :The Blue-Ribbon Jalapeno Society, and  Tina: The Red Hot Chili Cook-Off. Send me your email and I'll forward it to Carolyn who will gift you from Amazon.