Tulip Time

I am very pleased with the tulips that my mother and I planted last fall.  They are now flowering and the colours are so cheerful - they make me smile every time I look out the kitchen window.

I had purchased a few boxes of assorted tulip bulbs so I had expected a range of colours. Unfortunately, I have some reds mixed in with pinks, which I will fix before next spring.  Overall though, they have made a lovely spring display.  You can see the forget-me-nots are in bloom as well, and in the background, there are some allium buds that are not yet open.

One of the assortments was the regular style tulip flowers in an assortment of pinks and purples.

The shades are so rich and warm.  I love the deep plum on the left.

My favourite from this assortment is a white flower that has pink accents on it.  It is a really beautiful flower and I would like to find more of these to add to the garden for next year.

One of the assortments had the frilly-type flowers, and a large proportion of that box of bulbs is a bright magenta colour.  I am especially fond of these.

There are also some lovely yellow and red tulips - these are on especially long stems.  I will plant the red and yellow ones together in a bed that is separate from the pink and purple ones.  I love all the colours, but I'm not keen on the look of red and pink together.

Some of the flowers have very fine "shaggy" edges that give them an interesting appearance.  I think these are my favourite ones.

This one looks as if it is on fire.

My favourite in the shaggy-edged ones - this white and red one.  What a show-stopper!

I think we planted three boxes of mixed bulbs with 20 or so bulbs per box.  If I remember correctly, they were $9.99 for a box.  I would say that it was well worth the cost and the effort in planting to have such a stunning spring display.

Bunday Blog Business

The female hoomin bean (FHB) has been super-duper busy this week.  She has sat at her desk every day, all day, typing and grumbling and making flow diagrams and grumbling some more.  She gets a bit distracted when she's like that.  Sometimes, she does questionable things without really thinking about it.  For example, this week, she gave us hats.  Honestly, what was she thinking?

I tried mine on, but it wasn't at all suitable for my regal bearing. 

My Lady Épinette Nutkin tried hers on and was briefly traumatized into stillness...

...and then she realized her photo was being taken and was utterly horrified.

I had to console her afterwards.


No, dear FHB, we do not want hats.  At least, not ones like that.

On the positive side, after she grew tired of repeatedly filling our water bottle, the FHB decided that we should have a larger water repository, so she gave us our water in a cats-are-old dish.


I don't know why they call it a cats-are-old dish.  Maybe it's the kind of dish that cats eat from when they are old because they lose the ability to eat tidily and make a big mess, most of which gets caught in the dish. The FHB said that she used it previously to cook cats-are-olds in it, but really, she can't possibly have cooked a cat because she is not that crazy.  Yet.  In any case, it holds a lot of water for us and we are quite pleased with it.

I think we might need an intervention with the FHB to stop her from working so much.  Somebody ought to feed her more alfalfa.

Friday's Hunt v 3.19

This week....good grief.  I can't even say where the time went.  Busy does not begin to cover it.  Not very creative today I'm afraid, but at least I managed to get a post written!  Rather bird-focused today, but that is about all I have to share because otherwise, it's all work!

Our prompts this week:  Starts with S, Week's Favourite, Family

Starts with S:
This is a Song Sparrow, which I photographed in my parents' garden last weekend when I was visiting them.  I usually see different birds when I visit them, and this time was no exception.  So far, I haven't seen a Song Sparrow in my yard.

Interestingly, the Song Sparrow has a remarkable range of subspecies - about 30! - across North America.  This one is the typical eastern variant.

Week's Favourite:
I was pleased this week to see a Northern Flicker for the first time in my front yard.  I managed to get a picture of it - not a great picture, but it was exciting to see a new-to-my-yard bird, so that makes it my favourite!

Family:
I am hoping that a new family will soon be underway in temporary housing on my downspout!  This week, an American Robin built her nest there, and she took three days to complete the process.

Day 1

Day 2

On day 3, it looked similar to day 2, but a bit more built up.  Here she is sitting in her nest on day 3.

It was interesting to see her coming and going with bits of twig, and then smaller bits of twig, and then grasses.  She ended up bringing chunks of mud that she used to push into the nest sides, presumably for strengthening it, and making a lining that is smooth and soft.  I will be checking it to see how many eggs have been laid in it. Last year a robin built its nest in the climbing hydrangea which is just adjacent to this spot, so it might be the same pair I suppose. I do look forward to seeing a robin family over the next few weeks!

Bunday on Tuesday

This is most irregular!  Bunday posts should be done on Bunday.  The female hoomin bean (FHB) was away for the weekend.  She was visiting her parents.  We have decided that this is an acceptable reason for not providing us the means to publish our usual Bunday post.  Naturally, we were very busy all weekend because we had to supervise the male hoomin bean (MHB), since the FHB was not here to do it.

We also have been enjoying our new expanded shared area in the home office.  The FHB found out by doing some online research that bunnies who are recently bonded can't be given too much space too soon.  Sometimes I forget who Épinette Nutkin is, and I chase her, sort of by mistake.  The FHB learned that if she expands our area gradually, this is less likely to occur.

She went and bought a dog exercise pen. I know what you're thinking....doesn't the FHB know the difference between dogs and rabbits?  Some days I wonder.  But actually, it works rather well.  It is made of multiple folding panels that can be adjusted so she set it up to go in front of our shared crate.

Most of the time, now, I remember about Épinette Nutkin and I don't chase her.

The FHB says that when the grass starts to grow properly (it's still only just starting to grow here), she will take the exercise pen outside and let us play in the grass (supervised, of course).  She says she will put some netting over the top of the pen to make sure the hawks don't decide that we are breakfast.  Imagine!

Eventually, the FHB says we won't need the dog exercise pen anymore and she can let us run around all over the place like I used to run around before Épinette Nutkin came along.

In the meantime, we continue to snuggle together and cement our bond.  And keep each other's ears clean.

Friday's Hunt, v. 3.18

It's time for Friday's Hunt, although I'm typing this on Thursday because I will have a very busy Friday on the road with work-related meetings, and I won't have time to type a blog post.  I will get it linked up after the Eden Hills post gives us the link.

The topics for this week are:  Starts with R, Week's Favourite, and Window.

Starts with R
This is a red-breasted nuthatch - a common bird in my area, and one of my favourites.  They have a funny little flute-like song when they talk to each other.  I can always tell when they're coming through the woods to the feeder - they sound like they're playing tiny party horns.

I can always tell when they're coming through the woods to the feeder - they sound like they're playing tiny party horns

Week's Favourite
I'm so thrilled that the daffodils my mother and I planted in the fall have burst into bloom this week! That makes them qualify for my favourite this week.  Here are a few shots of the mixed varieties that we planted.  Many more blooms are yet to open.

Window
One of my clients very kindly purchased me a window bird house, since she knows how much I love the birds.  So far, I don't have any residents.  I moved the bird house to a different window today in the hopes that it will be a more attractive location, since it is closer to foliage that will come out on the climbing hydrangea.  Last year the robins built a nest in the hydrangea branches.  The birdhouse is designed for chickadees or sparrows.  Soon, those leaves on the hydrangea will unfurl and the birdhouse will be more hidden.

The birdhouse attaches to the window with little suction cups.  It has a clear back, so you can see into the birdhouse from inside the people house!

There is a little mirrored surface that you attach to the window on the inside so that the birds can't see you watching them.  You can see it in the background of this picture.  It is my kitchen window, so I have some chicken-themed items on the window sill, as well as a little lavender plant that I bought a couple of weeks ago.  It is one of the fancy lavender plants that produces bracts on top of the flowers. I believe it is a Lavandula stoechas species, but the tag didn't specify anything when I bought it.  It is only good for zone 7 and up outside, which we are not, so if I decide to put it out for the summer, it will stay in a container and come back in for the winter.  Anyway, that's a bit unrelated to the window birdhouse!  If I do get any residents, you will definitely hear about it on the blog!

Bunday Blog Business

Do you know what time it is?

Of course you do.  That's why you're here.  It's time for today's Bunday blog!

Somebody asked me recently about the importance of ear cleaning.  This is a very important task for rabbits.  One reason is because we get extra vitamin D that way!  I bet you didn't know that.  Our ears have a special oil on the surface of the skin that makes vitamin D when exposed to sunlight.  Rabbits get some of this vitamin D when they clean their ears.

Lady Épinette Nutkin is especially good at ear cleaning.  You can see that in the picture below.  She is just pulling down her left ear.

She uses a paw to pull her ear down, and then she holds it in both paws as you see in this next picture. She is licking the inside of her right ear in this picture.

Hoomin beans cannot lick their own ears.  This is a very serious design flaw.  I feel sorry for you.  We also keep our ears clean to avoid having problems with mites.  I bet your hoomin ears are all full of mites because you can't lick them properly.

Sometimes we help each other with ear cleaning.  I think that's what you hoomin beans ought to do.

It wouldn't take you very long to do this, because your ears are small and insignificant compared to ours.  Sometimes, I don't even know how you manage to get along in this world, with such pitiful ears.  We can rotate our ears 270 degrees to listen to things.  Your ears are stationary.  What were you thinking when you had those ears ordered?  I suppose opposable thumbs might make up for the defect of your ears, just a bit.

So do clean your ears, or have a friend do it, on a regular basis.  Take it from me...I'm an ear expert!

Friday's Hunt v 3.17

Here we are....I have no idea where the week went, but it's Friday again!  This has certainly been a busy one.  I hadn't thought about the blog all week so I had to do a bit of quick thinking this evening to get my ducks in a row.  Our prompts from Eden Hills are:  Starts with Q, Week's Favourite, and Evening.

Starts with Q:
Q is a tricky letter, but I decided to talk about quilts.  I have made a few quilts over time, although I haven't made any lately.  I made a quilted wall hanging many years ago that I recently found when I was unpacking some boxes of things that had remained packed for many years of moves.  I'd like to put it up on the wall again somewhere.  It needs to be washed and ironed since it is all wrinkled from its storage time.  I like the colours in it and the shapes.  It was a sort of random quilt hanging that I put together in a short time frame, just for fun, so it isn't perfect.

Last year (2016) I decided to do a block-of-the-month quilt project.  I decided it would be good to make a quilt block each month and give myself a craft project to look forward to each month.  I bought all my fabrics and I was really excited about proceeding.  In January of 2016, I made the first two of 6 pieced triangles required for the January block.  I realized that I made a mistake and that the two orange small triangles in the left triangle panel should have been overlapping, like they are in the triangle on the right.  I decided I needed to fix that before continuing.  That's as far as I got on my project.  The rest of the year, I was unable to continue due to us trying to sell Marc's house, having things in storage, and then not having the space yet set up in the new house.  I thought I'd start again this January.  It's April.  I haven't gotten to it yet.  Someday...

Week's Favourite:
I managed to get some really cute shots of the red squirrel last weekend.  I think that it might be a nursing or pregnant female.  In this shot, you can really see her teats, which I don't think I've really noticed on a squirrel before.

I also noticed something else that I hadn't noticed before - she appears to be shedding a winter coat.  I didn't know squirrels did that, or at least not as noticeably as this.  You can really see the line where the winter "fluffy" coat is shedding, just behind the foreleg.

Here are a couple more of my favourite shots from my squirrel photography session!

Evening:
I had to think quickly for this one.  I don't often take evening pictures.  But let me tell you a little story about a few evenings ago.  I heard a fearsome growly-squealy noise outside, and I went to peer out the window with the aid of the standing lamp in the home office.  A raccoon was hanging off the bottom of my bird feeder and swinging on it.  This was the culprit who has been bending my feeder pole over time.

A couple of mornings later, I came downstairs to the home office to enjoy my morning coffee.  I looked out the window.  "Hmmm," I said to myself, "that's interesting.  I'm quite sure there used to be a bird feeder there."  That was when I realized that raccoons not only have an interest in the contents of bird feeders, but apparently they have a desire to take them to their little raccoon homes and possibly use them as decor items, because clearly, my raccoon had carried it off somewhere.  I have wandered through the woods looking for it, but to no avail.  He left the lid, which we had replaced after he chewed through the plastic one.  The tube that held the seeds has entirely disappeared.

He has also displaced the screening from the tray feeder, which you can see hanging down in this picture that I took this evening.

I need a taller pole, not to mention adding a raccoon baffle to it.  In other news this evening, the bunnies are resting comfortably.