A busy day

At least I made it a busy afternoon. I'm not worth much on weekend mornings. But this afternoon I did some more planting on the slope out behind the garage. I planted I think six more irises (three Mom bought and three of the ones I dug up last weekend) along with four daylily bulbs and eight daffodil bulbs. I made sure to mark them so next spring I can watch for them. I also planted another daylily under the pecan tree and planted the butterfly weed in the corner of that garden where it will get some sun. I had intended to plant the butterfly weed with the wildflowers out by the driveway, but it's done so well in partial shade I think I'll keep it there (which is strange because it's a prairie wildflower. You'd think it would do best in full sun). I needed to get it in the ground before it started getting any cooler, otherwise I'd lose it, and this is the first one in three or four years of trying that has made it through the summer.

As I was planting under the pecan tree, I heard a noise and saw it was a squirrel. It was watching me pretty closely. It ran off when I tried to see how close I could get, but about 10 minutes later, as I was taking a break watching the water in the creek from near where I used to have the squirrel feeder, it came back. It sat on a cut-off branch about 3 feet above my head and gave me the eye. I know exactly what it was trying to say to me, too: "When are you going to put out the sunflower seeds, lady?!?" I told it to wait another week or two.

I did get a start on my bird/critter feeder project. A couple of years ago, I took the trunk of a small, dead tree that had fallen and set it in cement just outside the fence. I had always planned to make a birdfeeding station out of it. That first summer, all I got around to was putting a squirrel snacker on it, and last summer I had bigger things on my mind. So this year, I'm going to finish it off. Last week I drilled a 1-inch hole in one side, where I'll insert a dowel cut to about 1 foot. I'll hang the finch feeder from this. Today, I trimmed about a foot off the top of the pole and I'll put a tray feeder resting on top. I need to get some longer screws, though, so that might be for next weekend. I also got a new birdfeeder for the small birds that I'll hang from one of the pecan tree branches. It's got a cage around it that's just big enough for finches, sparrows, chickadees, etc. to get through, so they won't have to fight with the squirrels and bigger birds for food.

I'm pretty tired now, even after a hot shower, and I'm starting to get hungry. So that's all for now.