Life's Lists

This is the first evening it has been warm enough to sit out on the deck and write.  It is nice to be here again.  I worked HARD today.  The fellow who said he would do my lawn seems to have evaporated so I was out there myself again.  It is a solid two hour job and it is the kind of power mower you have to push.  Once again I was dodging caterpillars, but we are on the down side of this infestation.  

So now I am showered and wrapped in long pants and a sweatshirt looking out over the fruits of my labor.  The bird bath is full, there are daisies in the hayfield beyond, and there are wild turkeys strutting through the field lowering and raising their long necks like Nessie in the Loch. A most amazing bird has just landed in the lawn and when I reach for my Peterson’s I learn it is a female yellow shafted Northern Flicker.  It’s always a good day when you can add a bird to your life list.  And I notice that a pair of wrens has taken up residence in the birdhouse at the edge of the lawn.  Papa wren is putting those long pieces of grass I cut today to good use as he flies across the yard and returns with the long grasses which he pokes through the hole for mama wren to pull inside. As I look out over the garden the blue iris and the garlic behind it are catching the last of the sun.

There is much still to be done in the garden.  Saturday it rained, Sunday I played, and today I mowed.  Finish planting the carrots, plant out the leeks that are under lights in the basement, put in the winter squash, start the summer squash, and last but not least get ready to fertilize and re-mulch the asparagus bed.