Wildlife

The peonies and irises are just finishing up, as are the columbines, and the penstemons are now in bloom.

Above, you see the island bed has its weigela and rose flowering now. It's a quick distant picture I took from my car, but the bright, deep pink of the flowers is really beautiful. Someday, maybe not this summer because there's just so much to do, Mike is going to help me remove the landscape rock and mulch this garden, which will make it much easier to weed and much, much easier to move plants around. Right now there's a barberry and a weigela, and I'm trying to decide what to plan next to them. Maybe a purple barberry and a few more roses?

Today I weeded this bed a bit, knowing that we always seem to get chigger bites when we work in this garden. It was only hours after weeding that I started noticing the itchy welts of chiggers. Hopefully I've gotten them washed off in the shower now! I found this fantastic article that explains all about chiggers: Got Chiggers? It Figures! I found it very interesting.

We have been having a few more fun and pleasant wildlife encounters lately. Today, Mike found this exhausted, hungry hummingbird trapped and buzzing about our garage attic. 

 

 

He brought it inside, noting it seemed weak from lack of food. Assuming it was in a state of hypovolemic shock or metabolic acidosis, we quickly mixed up some hummingbird food, but it seemed too listless to do anything. I did contemplate taking vital signs to try to diagnose the problem, wondering what a normal respiratory rate would even be for a hummingbird (according to random web sites, apparently about 250 breaths per minute at rest and maybe twice that while flying; I can't imagine trying to count that!). We dipped his little beak in the sugar water, unsure whether this was helping or hurting- where are his little nose holes anyway? - and then went back inside. Several minutes later, he squeaked a little and then flew away with vigor. I'm thinking he's going to be ok!

Another very cool wildlife encounter we've been blessed to witness is the evening playtime of a family of foxes living on our property. Like elderly folks with nothing better to do, we gather around the picture window in our living room as the sun goes down to watch the foxes come out. It's entertaining, and about 3 million times more enriching than TV!

Growing plants is great, but it's even better experiencing the landscape providing habitat for wild creatures. This is turning out to be a great summer, with lots of cool outdoorsy things to introduce our little girls to! Can't get enough of the great outdoors!