Memorial Day Holiday Weekend

Looks like summer has definitely arrived in time for Memorial Day weekend here in Minnesota.  It doesn't seem very long ago that we were wondering what happened to winter and now summer is here.  We had storms on Saturday that dumped quite a lot of rain (which we needed) then a nearly record-breaking warm day yesterday (high of 89 degrees). 

Today has turned out to be a perfect day and I'm taking a break from getting my gardens in shape to do this blog post.

It's really nice to hear all the birds singing in the backyard again and I have some birdies taking advantage of the houses and nesting material I put out for them.  Here's the cozy little nest the chickadees made with moss, grass and some of the alpaca fiber I provided for their use.  There are 6 little eggs tucked into this fuzzy nest!

I took a look yesterday and here are 3 little baby chickadees almost ready to fledge.  They are just the cutest little things!  I'm not sure why the other 3 eggs didn't hatch, but 3 babies will be more than enough for the parents to take care of.

Mr. & Mrs. Eastern Bluebird also moved into one of my Peterson nestboxes.  They built a nice multi-layered nest with alpaca fiber on the bottom, then some grass and lastly a good layer of white pine needles.  This is the first time I can ever remember the bluebirds using white pine needles, but it definitely makes a nice, substantial nesting material for them.

There are 3 pretty blue eggs in here.  They should hatch sometime in the next week.

I've been working on getting some more native flowering plants added to my butterfly and hummingbird garden.  I bought this Golden Alexander plant at the garden center a couple weeks ago.  On the plant info card, it said Golden Alexander is a host plant for swallowtail butterflies.  I was happy to find this little swallowtail caterpillar on the plant stem.  Now I'll have to be really careful when I plant it so I don't dislodge the little bugger! 

I'm starting to see lots more butterflies in my yard already this season and I'm hoping that all the new flowers I'm planting will encourage them to stick around for the summer.  I had a nice Question Mark on the hummingbird feeder yesterday and also saw a couple of Mourning Cloaks earlier this spring.  Quite a few Monarchs are already flying around and the milkweed is coming in nicely, so there will be plenty of food sources for the monarch caterpillars.  I bought 2 new milkweed plants for my butterfly garden too -- one has orange flowers and the other has yellow flowers.  Probably won't be long and I'll have to think about getting the monarch ranch up and running again too......



Wednesday, March 3rd

Another Wednesday off today, and I needed to run some errands and purchase more birdseed. Fortunately I remembered to bring my camera along to take some photos of the eagles up the road. They're not always there, but today as I drove past I was happy to see that one of them was perched in the tree. Hopefully it would still be there after I finished my first 2 errands. And it was! I drove down the frontage road to try and get a better vantage point for photos and the cooperative eagle never moved. And here's why.......the nest! Because I've seen both eagles in the vicinity of this nest, I'm optimistic that they will be adding to this nest and using it for the third year in a row to raise their family. I'm looking forward to getting more looks at these eagles and their nest until the trees leaf out. The really neat thing about these eagles is that they're living right along the main highway into Rochester, so lots of people have gotten the chance to watch them over the past couple years.

I also made a stop at Michael's craft store this morning to look at some picture framing materials. A few weeks ago, I ordered some prints made of my "frosty morning" photos from Snapfish and they've been laying on my counter waiting for me to frame them and give as gifts. I spent quite a bit of time wandering the framing aisles of the store in search of what I wanted (with only 1 brief detour over to the yarn section!)

After getting home, it was time to see how much I remembered from long-ago days as a "picture framing specialist" in a local art gallery.

My skills were a bit rusty, but I was surprised to notice that some of the techniques used came back almost automatically. While I was assembling this picture, I recalled some of the fond memories I still have of that job and the good times shared with some of the best co-workers I've ever had the privilege to work with. It's always neat to visit someone's house or a business in Rochester and find a piece of art hanging on the wall that I can remember making the frame for or putting the picture together. I hope my gift recipient feels the same happiness when he unwraps this picture I made for him!