New Teapot Birdhouse

One of my goals as a gardener has been to attract the birds to my small yard. I have one nesting box that that has been used by the black-capped chickadees for several years. Some years they raise two broods. The same box has been used by wrens.



I saw this morning that the black-capped chickadees are already busy building their nest in this box!  The robins are busy building their nest too! That must mean that spring is here for good this time!

I love getting inspiration from Pinterest! (You can follow me if you like!) I had admired some of the teapot birdhouses I had seen and wanted to make one of my own.

The teapot was a Goodwill find and the old drawer was purchased for a dollar or two at a local vendor mall! I thought the drawer would add a little more shelter for the birds.

 

I glued the teapot to the wood and also looped the twine through the opening just in case the teapot should come unglued.  I also glued the top of the teapot to the drawer as a landing perch. 

I need to hang it a little higher, turn it in a different direction, (for better weather protection), and secure it better for less movement. I hope it will have new occupants soon!

I've been felting wool items for projects and saved the loose fibers for the birds. Hopefully I'll have a few more nesting birds here at Robin's Nesting Place!

The State of the Garden Address

I cleaned up some in the yard Monday! It was still cold but at least the sun was shining! I was saddened by the condition of my flower beds and my yard. I lost so many plants last summer during our severe drought. My flower beds are for the most part a blank slate again.  I still can't tell if my Kousa dogwood survived. It doesn't look good. We used to have such a nice lawn, it is mostly weeds again. It is all rather discouraging. I have plants growing inside, I'm hoping to fill some of the gaps as cheaply as possible.

On a more positive note, I am finally getting a few spring blooms! The irises are always my early bloomers. I also have a few daffodils blooming and the white crocus will probably open today. I think spring is really here to stay this time!

I was given a beautiful bouquet of tulips on Saturday. I had a little photography session with them yesterday!

It won't be long before my own tulips are blooming! I hope they come back this year!

I think I can finally say, Welcome spring!

Picture Purr-fect

After a long and difficult winter, we now have had the wettest April in 139 years! I wish we could share some of the rain with our friends in Texas! Day after day of rain and gloomy weather makes me want to look at pretty things.

Usually I am hesitant to cut so many of my spring flowers to bring inside, but with the rain, high winds, and the occasional threat of hail,  I knew they wouldn't last very long outside. I have thoroughly enjoyed the tulip and daffodil bouquets in the house!

I am still trying to learn more about photography and my camera. It seems that there is always more to learn. During these past few gloomy days, I've been  experimenting with indoor photography, (with no natural sunlight). The bouquets of flowers make the perfect models!



Speaking of purr-fect models, here is my sweet kitty enjoying our cozy spot. Cats always make things look even cozier!



More beautiful tulips!



I thought I would include a shot of the night stand I bought at a garage sale last year and painted turquoise.



I don't usually follow color trends, but I am loving all things turquoise, especially the robin's eggs and my sweet collection of blue Ball jars. (The peony picture is from last year. I can't wait to have them again!)

Nesting Robins

A few days ago my neighbor and dear friend called me and told me to come to her house that she had something to show me.



She knows me well, and knew that I would want to get a few pictures of the robin that had built a nest on her front porch!



Originally the robin had laid four eggs, but her nest is tilted and one of the eggs had rolled out. (I was there again today and now two of the eggs have fallen out.)



Mama robin was not at all happy about the interruption and was making in known.



Hopefully the two remaining eggs will hatch and I can get a few shots later of baby robins.

Spring is Finally Here

Even though there was frost on the ground this morning, and it has been cool and rainy for the last few days, I have thoroughly enjoyed the few warm days we have had so far! The tulips and daffodils are blooming! We had some threatening weather with an expectation of hail and damaging winds. I couldn't bear the thought of my tulips being ripped to shreds by hail so I went out, in the rain, and cut a bouquet to enjoy inside.



I set up a little photography "studio" and played with my camera. It had been a long time since I had done that. It was kind of difficult to take pictures of anything this past winter except snow and birds. Unfortunately my blogging has suffered for several reasons.



My computer is almost five years old and for some reason it had become vulnerable to vicious trojan and malware viruses. Several times we have had to completely reformat the computer and each time I had to reload my software and programs on the computer. I still don't have everything I need back on, (like the printer). It has been quite a hassle and has kept me from blogging. The thought of finding and organizing all of my pictures and loading the editing software again was quite daunting and honestly not a priority.



In the past, I would have just purchased a new computer, but these days that isn't possible.This one is still under the extended warranty for a few more months and I am hoping it will crash before that time is up. I have never had a computer to last this long! Knowing how things have been going for us this past year, this one will last five years and one day!




It is so hard to believe that we are nearing the end of our homeschooling experience. For the last fifteen years we have homeschooled our two children. Only one month before graduation and that chapter of our life is finished. It has been such a blessing for our family and if I had it to do all over again, I would do it without a second thought!



My husband is beginning a new endeavor to start his own business. After being laid off several times due to corporate layoffs, he is taking his future in his own hands. It is frightening but exciting at the same time.



I have been so blessed to be able to stay at home with my children for the last twenty-three years. They have been my primary focus. Now that they are both grown with full-time jobs, I am at the cross-roads in my own life. I need to find a new purpose and way to be productive. I am babysitting part-time and I love the children, but it is a temporary situation.



I would really love to do something photography related and am contemplating the possibilities.



Thank you all for sticking with me through the tumultuous year and the sporadic posts. I hope things will settle down after graduation and I really hope the computer issues have been resolved now.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

This Weeks Miscellany

My fur babies and I thoroughly enjoyed the warm sunny weather earlier this week. I cleaned up in the yard and did a lot of weeding and some mulching. Lilly stayed close by rolling around on the grass and keeping the birds at a safe distance. She loves to chase them away from the feeders. Libby is an indoor cat and she always tries to find a warm sunny spot to lay in.

It rained a little today and I was so glad to see it. The ground was already dry and starting to crack and the grass was turning brown. We should have more rain over the next few days, so hopefully that will green the grass back up and perk up the garden.

When I did a walk around the yard yesterday, I saw little feathers in the flowerbed, (center picture). I think they are chickadee feathers. I was so sad thinking that my little chickadee that had been working so hard building a nest had met its demise. I still see chickadee activity in the bird house so hopefully it wasn't one of the ones nesting.



I have enjoyed the tulips this year! I am surprised at how long they have lasted, although with the rain today, I'm pretty sure they are finished for the season.

I cut several tulips a few days ago and tried to artistically photograph them. It was too windy and I spent the time fighting the trifold display board that I was using for my background. It won the fight.

I haven't had time to try to photograph them again and after the rain today, I doubt there will be any left to photograph.

So, I thought I would go ahead and share my blurry tulip pictures. I'm still holding out hope that I can have another, less windy, photo session with the tulips.

Today is my twenty-eighth wedding anniversary. I spent the day going to garage sales with a friend and then my sweet hubby and I went out to dinner.

I can't wait to show you my weekend garage sale treasures! I got something that has been on my wish list for several years!

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Gorgeous Cherry Tree Blooms-Mosaic Monday

The cherry trees at the nursing home are in bloom. This has to be my favorite tree. I know I said that about the crabapple tree down the street, but I forgot all about this beauty. Besides, it's a woman's prerogative to change her mind.


I actually took pictures of it two times this week. The first time was Wednesday evening. They took Mom to the shower and I had a few minutes to walk around outside. Thankfully I carry a small Panasonic Lumix camera with me in my purse so I spent several minutes standing under this tree soaking in this magnificent beauty and taking pictures.




I was back again on Saturday to feed her breakfast and brought my Canon EOS 50D SLR.

All of the pictures above were taken with the Canon.

These were taken with the Panasonic.

I want to tell you about that sweet visit to the nursing home on Saturday. Alzheimer's is a tragic disease. My Mother-in-law was diagnosed with it about 14 years ago. Weighing only 76.8 pounds, she is now in the end stages and hasn't known who we are for several years. She can no longer speak understandable words. Her language ability is like infant gibberish before they learn to speak. She still smiles and tries to talk, but most of the time she sits with a vacant stare. While I was feeding her breakfast Saturday morning, she began to stroke my hair, then she patted and rubbed my face and patted my arm. It has been a very long time since she has shown any affection. I had to fight the tears that were streaming down my face. It was so special to have that affection from her. It totally made my day and the beautiful cherry tree was the icing on the cake.

I'm linking this post to Mosaic Monday Hosted by Mary at the Little Red House.

Garden Blogger Bloom Day

Today is Garden Blogger Bloom Day, hosted by Carol of May Dreams Garden. It is 82° here today and the record breaking highs have caused us to have earlier than normal spring blooms.


I'm not sure what the plant is in the bottom middle, I think it is a weed. I was hesitant to pull it up until I saw the flower. It has gotten huge in a short period of time. My poor lone surviving lilac shrub has very few blooms, but I could still smell it as I was weeding in the yard today. I am really hoping that the two new lilacs will do better. My flowering crabapple tree is blooming, but my paltry flowers are hardly worth mentioning after posting about the tree down the street.

Funny how plants differ. I have two red twig dogwoods planted together. One is covered in blooms and I've yet to see a bloom on the other.



I am still enjoying the tulips. Most of mine are pink or purple but there are a few red ones scattered about. The peonies have buds! I can't wait for them to bloom again. Lilacs and peonies, both make my heart sing with delight!

The clematis are full of buds. I look forward to seeing them again too!


I was surprised to see the May Night Salvia beginning to bloom already. Oops, I just realized that I put that dogwood in two collages.

I have phlox in several places, it has spread and is blooming like crazy! I think I need to do some transplanting.

I have some things that I have to get done today, so I better get off of the computer and get busy. I hope everyone is having a great day!

My Favorite Spring Tree

Every spring I look forward to seeing one particular tree in bloom. It is a flowering crabapple tree that is on a street in our neighborhood. For some reason this tree blooms like none of the other crabapple trees I've ever seen.



I'm sure the neighbors must think I'm crazy because I stand there with my camera every spring , day after day, trying to capture the beauty of this tree in full bloom.




It is on the street of our entrance so there is a good bit of traffic. I do feel a little silly standing there with my camera in front of my neighbor's house trying to catch the light just right. Or especially if there are bees, I walk all around the tree trying to capture them in action. I'm kind of shy and don't really like drawing attention to myself...



but I'll risk a little embarrassment to get pictures of this gorgeous tree.



Have you ever seen so many blooms before? It is just covered with these gorgeous pink blooms. I love it!





A couple of years ago I purchased four lilac shrubs and all but one died. Today I found some for $5.97 and I bought two of them.



One of them had a few blooms and I cut them off to enjoy them inside the house. I love lilac blooms!



They smell wonderful!

I hope these will survive. I'd love to have large lilac shrubs full of blooms so that I could have lilac arrangements all over the house each spring, (not to mention all of the photo ops I could have).

A few days ago I mentioned that we were having Internet trouble. Every night, for nine straight nights, right about eight o'clock our Internet would go out. It would stay off until about eight o'clock the next morning. I called AT&T and they checked some things on their end but it still didn't correct our problem. They sent out a technician. I had been trying to figure out what the problem could be, and right before he arrived I remembered that my husband had added a new sensor to our outside light. Feeling rather silly I thought I'd mention this fact to him. At first he didn't think that was the problem and checked some other things. It was cold that day and he decided to put his stocking cap over the light post just to see what would happen. Sure enough, the Internet went down. He took the cap off and it came back on. We had dusk to dawn Internet service! We took the new sensor off and now our problem is solved. The outside light never turns off, (which is why we replaced the sensor), but at least we have Internet at night now.

It is even crazier, because my husband's work computer was never affected by this. Just our three home computers.

I'm linking this to Mosaic Monday at Little Red House.