bunnies — Page 4

Flora and Fauna

July 25, 2021 at 9:42 am by Claudia

The limelight hydrangea is in full flower. Unlike my Annabelle hydrangea, the limelight always blooms later in the summer. Eventually, these flowers will turn pink. It’s a beautiful plant, lush and full.

In case you’re interested, I filmed a short video yesterday. It’s just a short little tour of the big garden bed and the beds by the porch entrance. Everything is in flower and it was sunny and beautiful so it seemed like a good time. It’s on my Instagram feed.

But you can tell it’s rained a lot (an understatement) because in certain areas of the property, I’m getting a lot of mosquito bites. For instance, yesterday we decided to sit in the Secret Garden for a bit – mostly to see if mama robin objected. She did. So we quickly got up and left so she could relax. I’d say we were out there about 3 or 4 minutes. I got 5 mosquito bites. Yikes. The Secret Garden is at the bottom of a hill and it stays wet longer than any other part of the property, so it makes sense that mosquitoes would thrive there.

Nature update: So far, I’ve seen lots of butterflies, including a black swallowtail, an Eastern swallowtail, a great spangled fritillary, and a few monarchs. This morning, our little groundhog was hanging around the big garden bed and we saw our first bunny in over a year. Unfortunately, the little bunny was in one of my garden beds! I opened the door and eventually, he scampered off, white tail bouncing. Oh what a cutie! And of course, mama robin continues to feed her babies constantly throughout the day. She’s a single mother so she has to do it all. I see more of the babies bodies now as they get stronger and thrust themselves up even higher to get food.

I finished my book this morning and, since I’m reading them in chronological order and I missed the one that was published before this one, I’m going to catch up by reading that next. I’m really enjoying the Ruth Galloway series.

I haven’t begun another painting yet. Just wasn’t in the mood. Today is dark and rainy, so light might be an issue. We’ll see.

By the way, I’m finding the fact that the email versions of these posts have been going out on time consistently lately rather ironic since they will soon be no more. Ah well.

Stay safe.

Happy Sunday.

Flowers & Predators

June 6, 2019 at 10:37 am by Claudia

The clematis is blooming like crazy.

The wild roses, dreaded brambles at any other time of the year, are in bloom all over the property; clouds of white everywhere.

They’re so delicate! And they have a lovely scent. My favorites are the tiny, tiny pink buds. Right now I love them. In a few weeks, we’ll be enemies again.

And the peonies. What can I say?

I walk down to their position near the road more than a few times a day to inhale that heavenly scent. I don’t know of a more luscious flower than a peony. (Purely my opinion, of course!)

The days are getting warmer around here. We seem to have turned a corner.

Two quick animal/avian stories:

Last night, I was looking out the window of the kitchen door and saw one of our young bunnies munching on some grass. He was fairly close to both the house and the big garden bed. Suddenly, his head moved to the right and he took off and ran through the secret garden. I yanked open the door and saw some bigger animal run under my car. When I walked outside, the animal took off toward the shed. It was one of my neighbor’s cats – the bane of my existence. He paused at the shed, and I shook my fist at him and told him to “Get out of here!”

That bunny knew the cat was a threat. I remember thinking – before I knew what animal was lurking under my car – that it would be hard to believe it was a groundhog because I’ve seen both creatures co-exist peacefully in the yard. Groundhogs have no interest in bunnies.

But a large cat? A definite threat.

Then, this morning, we were sitting out on the porch for our second cup of coffee and I saw two large hawks flying high, followed by a smaller bird. The hawks veered to the left, one of them disappearing, the other landing in a tree. Immediately, a constant warning call sounded, with non-stop urgent chirps. I told Don that that was a distress call he was hearing. Soon the distress call was taken up by another bird as well. You could hear calls coming from both sides of the road. On and on it went until, after about five minutes, the hawk erupted from the tree, followed closely by a red-winged blackbird who chased him away.

The chirping stopped. All was peaceful.

Don was amazed.

It was better than anything on television.

Happy Thursday.

The Perfect Green

May 25, 2019 at 9:35 am by Claudia

Thanks for all your supportive comments about the new sofa! The cushions need to be broken in and that will take a while. I’d rather have to break them in than have something with not enough support from the get go. We sit up much higher than on the old sofa – much better for our backs and knees. We don’t have to try and haul ourselves up from the sofa.

It’s really beautiful and we’re thrilled with it. The color is exactly what I wanted, but we saw so many slightly different variations of it on the computer screen that we weren’t sure just what we’d get. I thought it might be a bit brighter, which I would have been fine with, but secretly, this is the color I wanted. This soft spring green; almost the exact shade of the base of the lamp that sits on the table, the same as the softer green found in McCoy Pottery, and the same as the green found on the glass lamp shade on the floor lamp. It is perfect.

It was a spectacular day yesterday – sunny, low seventies, a gentle breeze. We sat out on the porch a lot. Bird song, bunnies, green grass – except for a couple more plants to pot, everything is where I want to be and that realization brought a lot of satisfaction. All of the work is worth it, because we now get to bask in the beauty of our property for the next 3 or 4 months.

The very last lilacs – these little blooms. The scent was a strong as ever, but I think that they’ll be gone in a day or two.

Wild honeysuckle up in the back forty.

Lamium – yellow archangel – in the big garden bed. Full of yellow flowers and the bees love it.

Our bridal veil spirea.

A little bunny munching on grass right by the funky patio.

I spent much of the day cleaning yesterday. You know how it is, you bring in something new and suddenly you are vacuuming, swiffering, straightening up and dusting.

Today, I’m going to run an errand or two and then enjoy my gardens.

Happy Saturday.

Flora and Fauna

Flowers & Predators

The Perfect Green

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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