This would technically be called a weed. But I call it a pretty flower. The yellow blooms are a welcome splash of color in the back forty.
Rain, rain, and more rain – that’s the weather report here in our neck of the woods. The trees have baby leaves, the plants in the gardens have shown their appreciation for all that rain by spreading, and growing taller and wider. Lush green is everywhere; in the grass, in the gardens, and on the trees. I love the spring green of the grass at this time of year.
Hello, roses! Welcome back.
At one point in the day yesterday, there was a bunny rabbit near the birdbath cleaning himself, the chipmunk was a few feet away looking for food and a catbird was in the birdbath. All in about 4 square feet of space. I’ve seen robins and catbirds taking a dip in the birdbath and this morning I saw a squirrel taking a drink! That’s a first.
This is the bunny rabbit I was talking about. He’s hanging out by our car in this photo. No, that’s not a snake. It’s a bean pod from the Catalpa tree. I’ve seen this same bunny hanging out in and around the silver maple tree that is right outside our kitchen window. In fact, I mentioned it to Don several times, wondering why he was always nestling himself down among the dry leaves that surround that tree. I noticed this over the course of about 3 days.
There he is. I took this from inside the kitchen. You can see how close he is to the house. We clean up this area in the spring and I usually rake as many of the dead leaves up as I can, but there are still lots of them on the ground. That turns out to be a good thing because while we were making dinner last night, we watched this little one scurrying around. It took a while before we realized the rabbit was gathering material for a nest. The bunny would pull up some stuff from the ground, leap up this little hill, and then jump in the little hole. Its head would disappear inside the hole while the nest material was added and then it was back to gathering more material. The second arrow points to the nesting area.
We were mesmerized. And enchanted. Most of the bunnies on this property make their nests in the woods. This one, however, has decided to make a nest right outside our kitchen window!
I immediately thought about how careful I would have to be when mowing or weed wacking.
It’s actually a good place to make a nest because the leaves provide camouflage. The bunny rabbit blends right in.
Smart bunny rabbit.
Sometimes, when birds are in the birdbath and bunnies and chipmunks are running around, I feel like I’m in a Disney movie. All I need is some animation. But real life is much better than animation, don’t you think?
Happy Saturday.
