UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

Oscar is notorious for 1) not finishing projects and 2) not cleaning up stuff he’s used on a project. This of course has consequences.

For example, when you leave your brand-new wire cutters in the yard for weeks, instead of putting them away, they rust (fortunately they were His wire cutters not mine or there would have been quite a different discussion). When you drag your feet for four months building a chicken tractor that should have taken 1 month even on an Oscar-modified schedule (2 weekends for a regular-speed person), you get to live with a frustrated grandma (he agrees this isn’t pleasant but still just sits there). When you don’t put away the half bag of sand left after laying pavers in the dog yard ….

… a pair of Carolina Wrens builds their nest in the bag …

Click HERE to see and hear a Carolina Wren.

They are cute little birds and I enjoy listening to them. I admit I screamed quite loudly when I looked in the bag and one of them flew out! Both the male and female tend the nest and it’s been interesting to watch as food is shuttled in. The nest is domed with a side entrance so I can’t see if there are eggs or hatchlings in it. We’ll just leave it alone. Apparently, the male wren removes the nest when they are done. Hmm, I’m not used to that. What a pleasant thought.

In other news, I got a reprieve from watering the garden for the past week as it rained from Monday through Friday. Ironically, the day it started raining was the same day I received the new sprinkler I ordered to make watering the peas, squash, sunflowers, and cosmos more efficient, lol.

Things are moving along at a fast clip in the garden. When I showed you some of the garden developments earlier this week, the spaghetti squashes were 2″ long. Today they are 5″ long! In just four days!

While putting tomato cages on the tomato plants this weekend, I discovered one of the comfrey plants has flowers.

A few days ago, the Time Bomb pepper plants had flowers, but today I discovered a little pepper! I am looking forward to trying these. They apparently have a heat index between a bell pepper and a jalapeno pepper.

I am pleased to report that not only have I managed to keep the Vick’s Plant alive, but it’s thriving. I have a dismal track record with succulents, so I am feeling quite accomplished. Click HERE to see how much it has grown since I transplanted it.

Summer has begun. In Alaska, that means winter is almost here. In North Carolina, that means I can plant more stuff.