About a month ago I shared a photo of my rustic mimosa tree trellis for the cucumbers. I fashioned the trellis from the trunks of mimosas from a few of the trees he had chopped down a couple of weeks before. I was hoping they would look just rustic once they were covered with the cucumber vines. I didn’t expect them to grow!
Unfortunately, they are. They are sprouting everywhere. They’re sunk about two feet into the soil and now covered with cucumber vines, so I’m not inclined to hoist them up mid-summer. But pulling them up is definitely on the to-do list for fall cleanup.
Trust me. Although mimosas are rather pretty trees with charming fan-shaped pink flowers, they are extremely invasive. We have a grove of them—and many more volunteers—to prove it.
This may look like just another sunflower photo to you.
To me though, there are two very interesting things about this image.
First, I didn’t plant this sunflower. I have planted sunflowers, but not this one. The sunflower I planted are ‘Titan’ and they aren’t quite blooming yet. This sunflower was planted by a bird, probably, with seed from the birdfeeders. This would happen quite a lot if I allowed all the little seedlings around the birdfeeders grow instead of mowing them down. It also happened once before in an oddly pretty and serendipidous container arrangement that also included some hearty pansies that over-wintered.
So that’s the first thing I find interesting about this photo.
The second thing is all the bees. Bees are naturally attracted to flowers, so that’s not what I find interesting. What’s interesting, to me, is that there are so many bees. Not just here but all over my yard.
I named my garden Bumblebee Garden when I began gardening here about nine years ago because of all the bees. But in the past couple of years there have been relatively few bees by comparison. There has been the odd and lazy carpenter bee, but not so many other bees. I don’t know why. We don’t spray chemicals on the lawn. The farmer who tends the small hayfield doesn’t spray anything. I had sort of attributed it to the overall colony collapse disorder I’ve been reading so much about. But really, I don’t know.
But this year, whoa doggie. We have bees! We have little patches of clover in the lawn covered by bees. Bees are all over our flower boxes. Bees are everywhere! They are mostly what I just call bumblebees—fat, slow and lazy little bees that are not aggressive. When I am working near the flowers and the bees, I don’t hesitate to just bump them out of the way if I need to work on one of their flowers. They don’t care.
I love the bees.
So you see, for me, this photo isn’t just a sunflower. It’s a volunteer and an image of the return of the bees.
Our hens lay a beautiful variety of eggs. The colors range from white to cream to brown to green to blue. The color is entirely dependent on the kind of chicken. The Polish hens lay the smallest eggs in creamy white and beige. The Easter Egg chickens lay medium sized eggs in green to blue hues. The Red Star and Black Star hens, bred for production, lay brown eggs. And they can really push out some monster eggs!
Until yesterday the largest egg I bothered to measure was 95 grams. Yesterday, one of the hens pushed out a 98 gram egg. To put that in perspective, think about the jumbo sized eggs you can buy at the grocery store. They are only about 71 grams. This egg was a full 27 grams larger than a jumbo egg.
You know what I say? Poor hen! It’s no wonder I hear honking and yelling from the coop. That’s gotta hurt!
It was nearly 100 degrees while I was working outside today. I have a sliver of wood in my big toe, poison ivy and am covered in bug bites. Sometimes I think I need an easier hobby.
Holy moly, it’s hot. I was just outside providing drought assistance to the suffering greenery. Now excuse me while I cower here in the air conditioning for a bit before making dinner.
It has been such a busy work week. I have been chained to the desk. I can’t wait until the weekend. I have tomatoes to stake, flowers to plant, garlic to harvest, strawberries to keep in control, some clipping and pruning and, who can forget, weeding!
My friend Helen Yoest, from Gardening With Confidence, will be here in about 10 days. I plan to pick her brain and get advice about some real problem areas here. I was hoping for more time to prepare for an esteemed guest, but that’s just not to be. She’ll have to take me as I am.
You can’t pick up the newspaper or turn on the television without hearing more about the Gulf Coast oil disaster.
The wildlife population will be devastated for years, perhaps decades, to come. You can help with the conservation, monitoring and aid to the birds by donating to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. This is the top school and science center for birds in the U.S. and sponsor of many, many programs, including citizen scientist-type programs. If you cannot afford to donate, it’s a great place to just be informed or to get involved through volunteer activities you can do in your own back yard.
Over dinner we were talking about blast-from-the-past music and then blast-from-the-past comedy. Harry and I explained how we would play stacks of 45s on the turntable to my 19-year-old son. And I remembered my parents’ Dick Newhart album and “Driving Instructor.” And while we were talking about old comedy, who can forget, George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words?” Ah, the things I am teaching my 19-year-old son! Yes, I taught him about seven dirty words!
I am also grateful that the chickens had walkabout time without destroying my garden this afternoon.
And I am grateful for that arms and shoulders P90X workout, although I will be sore again tomorrow.
