Mystery solved! 

The alien from outer space has been identified, and we won’t be carried off by little green men after all!

A friend who reads the blogs said it was a hummingbird moth.  I went to the Internet, and, sure enough, she was right.  Let me share a small picture I found that will give you a better look at the moth than I was able to photograph for you yesterday when he was halfway inside the dark petunia.  This photo also shows his long tongue.

The hummingbird moth returned to the petunia patch after supper.  Funny, but just knowing who he was made me unafraid of him.  And doesn’t he resemble a hummingbird in many ways? 

Thankfully, the rainy morning gave way to sun in mid-afternoon.  A black squirrel began to eat a walnut on top of the branch holding the Swiss Chalet, and he was perched only a few feet from it. 

Lord Wren torpedoed him not once but three times! !  He dove right down at him, cuffing him on the ear!  I saw it!  The squirrel almost dropped his walnut . . . but hung onto it.  Talk about a David and Goliath situation! 

The squirrel ambled as far down the limb as he could, and sat down to continue his repast, not  flustered in the least. 

I had read that wrens were feisty, and this was proof!  

It’s one thing to chase off someone who is too close to your home for comfort, like the black squirrel, but I’ll have to check out the Landlord and Tenant Act.  When we leased the Swiss Chalet to Lord and Lady Wren, we thought it was understood that the Agreement included the entire canopy of the Black Walnut tree, and nothing more.  Now they think they own the whole knoll below it!  

Now, tell me, have you ever asked a wren why he didn’t read the fine print before signing a Rental Agreement? Ve get too soon oldt undt too late schmart!

I was returning from putting the wheelbarrow behind the garden shed, and had to pass beneath the Swiss Chalet as I headed toward the steps.  Lord Wren lit into me full blast.  He was practically cussing me!  Imagine scolding your landlord!!  What’s this world coming to?  And what’s the good of filing a complaint with the Small Claims Court?  By the time it gets on the docket, the wren family will have moved out, and no one will be able to serve the summons!

Opening the shed door . . . and I don’t have to finish the sentence.  You’ve already guessed who was hiding inside its inner edge.  Isn’t he wearing a handsome jacket?  If you look closely, you can see the suction cup on the bottom of one of his left toes!

It wasn’t quite eight o’clock when I greeted my neighbour in her back yard.

“Do you want to see the bird?” she asked.  I high-tailed it into the house for the camera. 

But this wasn’t Pipinka’s first meal of the day.  Oh no.  He chirps for breakfast at 5:00 a.m., and he expects to get it!  Mrs. B cuts her hand-dug fish worms into 1” pieces, which he prefers more than the scrambled eggs.

With Pipinka on her sweatered forearm, Mrs. B showed me how she lowers her arm, and coaxes softly, “Fly.  Fly.”  Each time, Pipinka flutters his wings, but hangs on with his feet.  “His wings are getting stronger,” she observed.

“I was sitting with him in my hand yesterday, and he began singing to me,” she said.  “He really did.  I think he was thanking me for rescuing him.  Tears began falling down my cheeks, would you believe it?”

Mr. McD and I took all of our breaks and lunch out on the lawn swing, not wanting to miss the sight of Lord and Lady Wren launching their prized babies on their maiden flight.  Maybe this would be the day.  Twice I saw one of them carrying a white blob out of the nest, removing waste.  A few times, they were both inside the nest.  There was no dawdling on the front porch before or after any of their entries, which they often used to do. Not today.  It was Zoom!  Off to fetch more grub!  Zoom!  In to serve it up!  Well, we’ll see what happens tomorrow.

From seemingly outer space, an alien creature cruised silently into the petunia patch and filled his sizeable tank from several gas pumps!  If he had flown in my direction, I would have screamed!!!

What in the world is he?  (I lightened the photo quite a bit so you could see the creature inside the dark-purple petunia, so the creature itself would not actually be this light in colour.)

Now, who should come back to pay us a visit but Old Dag the Dragonfly?  Wherever has he been?  This was truly becoming an Old Home Week day!  Old Dag loves to land on a sunny step,  turn on his rotors, go straight up for a few feet, and back down again.  He repeats these manoeuvres a few times.   With so many aviation crashes happening all over the world, no doubt Old Dag is carrying out the instructions in his Preventive Maintenance Manual, endeavouring to avoid any unpleasant or unplanned landings or demerit points.  Mr. McD did not hear the control tower’s ”All clear for take-off!,” but Old Dag did, and zoomed off into the blue.

Catchy slogans work! 

Why would a restaurant advertise their noon menu when they can use a catchy slogan to do several things at once?  They can subtly indicate that it’s all right to lay in bed on a Sunday . . . it’s all right not to bother getting up for breakfast . . . or to go to church.  Just show up around noon at their leisurely dining establishment, and they’ll offer you roast beef right along with bacon and eggs – whatever your little heart fancies!  It’s called Sunday Brunch!

One thing for sure, though, you won’t catch the hummingbirds sleeping in, and they won’t miss breakfast either – wouldn’t think of it!  And as to where they attend church, I’m not quite sure, but they will not forget their Maker, the One Who guides them all the way from Costa Rica each summer to sip on Canadian nectar, the finest energy drinks in the whole world! 

You’ve heard of steel workers who can climb girders so high during construction of sky scrapers that an ordinary person would become dizzy if he attempted it.  Most of these skilled workers are North American Indians, admirably equipped to handle such work with sure-footedness and agility. 

A tiny creature with nerves of steel has been working at Cedar Hollow.  The funny thing is – I don’t recall interviewing or hiring him, or checking out a hard hat or steel-toed work-boots for him.  He has set to work anyway, fastening girders in place in a most dangerous location!  I’ve been given to understand that the strength of these girders is many times that of steel.  While I don’t have a photo of him in our employee file to show you, here is what he has constructed:

What criteria does the person who cuts the lawn at your place use to decide when that chore should be done?  A dear Scottish lady in a seniors’ complex once told me that her father always said it was time to cut the lawn when it was high enough for a sparrow to hide in!

Do you think a recent visitor to Cedar Hollow, a white-throated sparrow, is trying to tell us something? 

I don’t know about you, but I’m wondering when the young wrens will fly the coop???  It’s got to be soon.  It seems I’ve been clicking pictures forever of the tenants who leased the Swiss Chalet !  Sure hope I don’t miss that exciting event.  Surely they won’t leave Cedar Hollow without bidding us adieu.  In spite of their mother scolding me recently for being too close to her home, I’m hoping her southern manners will carry the day, and that she will instruct her little ones to at least give us a little curtsy before they head off for points unknown.

Six evening primroses bloomed at different spots around the pond last night.  I believe this is a better close-up picture than I have been able to get before.  Its four-pronged, light green stigma in the centre is the motor that pushes the petals open . . . while you watch!   

Mr. McD and I headed outdoors after we had broken our fast  (had breakfast), coffee mugs and newspaper in hand.  Who knew whether we would be able to get out again, given how unsettled the weather looked?

The baby wrens certainly enjoyed a hearty breakfast, judging by the frequent trips made by their parents around the eight o’clock hour.   Sometimes they shopped in our neighbour’s yard . . .

 . . . and sometimes they flew silently and swiftly into one of our flowerbeds.  The truth is, they’re so busy now, they scarcely sing a note – so very different from the song-filled days before their family arrived.  

Come to think of it, how much singing did we do when we were diapering and feeding our kids?  With our firstborn, I was so pie-eyed from lack of sleep, I would have perished if my mother hadn’t arrived to help out for a week – a veritable angel on my doorstep with a suitcase in her hand!  

Well, at Cedar Hollow, it’s Bugs Ahoy! !  However, I wish the wrens had an appetite for the tiny red beetles that chew holes in the lilies, or the copper-coloured larger beetles that make lace out of whatever leaves they choose.  Hey!  Maybe we should team up.  When they get done with a leaf and it looks like a bit of netting, I should dip it in some metallic liquid and transform it into a piece of jewellery, like you find in booths at the fall fair! 

Around eleven, Mrs. B emailed me some pictures of Pipinka which her son took. 

In one of them, he was almost falling asleep in her hand.  Can you imagine that level of trust?  My hat’s off to our good neighbour, Mrs. B.  I’m too squeamish to pick up fishworms . . . yikes! . . . let alone hand-feed them, but she is not, and seems to know just what to do for the little bird.

 Before supper, we experienced a regular downpour of rain!   Hail danced and pinged about on the shed roof and patio!  Thankfully, the hail wasn’t very large, so I do hope the fruit orchards didn’t suffer damage.   Why did it hail?  Usually that only happens when the heat has been oppressive.

During a heavy rain like this, I sometimes think back to a poem we learned in public school:

The woodpecker pecked out a little round hole

And made him a home in the telephone pole.

The lightning flashed, the thunder rolled,

But he was safe in his little round hole.

We were seeing double, double wrens, that is! 

Lord Wren was waiting on Swiss Chalet’s front porch with a juicy tidbit for the young ones.  Well, maybe it was crunchy.  I’m not sure.  Lady Wren began to exit from the birdhouse, which sent him flying off to the left as she flew off to the right, all at the same time, as though it was choreographed!  Somewhat rattled, he was back in no time, popping into the nursery to deliver his goodies.  That will teach him to stop saying, “Hurry up” all the time.

 Patience is a virtue. 

Possess it if you can. 

Often found in women. 

Seldom found in man.   (I couldn’t resist.)

Do you have plants without names?  It took a bit of searching on the Internet, but I believe this is Prairie Sunset False Sunflower.   It was obtained at a plant exchange a few years ago. I transplanted two of its offspring to the side fence this spring.  They had popped up of their own accord.  Once they reach their height, they make good use of their amazing stature (these are 8’2″  tall) by blooming for a long time, brightening the whole garden with their sunny flowers.

Their sturdy stems are perfectly square in shape, not round. Their large leaves form an attractive dimple, surrounding the stem.  Sometimes the dimple becomes a miniature pond after a rain.

Humidity came and went today, as did the sun and rain. 

“I can’t get up the steps,” John complained yesterday as he headed to the forsythia to trim it.  Well, yes, he could, but the prickly yellow barberry was certainly hogging a good part of the steps.  It was time to trim it back this morning.  Its thanks was to plant a short barb in my little finger, even though I was armed with garden gloves.  

One of the cucumbers was trying to copy Jack in the Beanstalk!  It had grabbed onto the wire trellis covering the downspout and began its heavenward climb.  Not wanting to miss out on any of its cucs, I gently tugged its fingers off . . . and made it do an about turn, securing it to a bush with some Velcro in a lower position.  There.  Now I won’t have to drag a step ladder out to harvest its crisp produce!

The cucumbers were actually living dangerously.  Mr. McD attached a green, plastic thingamajig to the end of the downspout.  When it rains, it rolls out, right over the cucumbers and onto the lawn!  And why did I plant them there?  Because it is one of the sunniest spots in our back yard!  Never mind.  I found a wonderful wire plant stake in the shed.  It had a fork on one end to push it into the ground with, and a round 2” loop at its  top end, some 12” above.  The very thing!  I gently threaded the ends of three cucumber vines through the loop, well above the slithering roll-out thing.  It was as though one of the vines said, “Hold on, girls.  We can do it!” and snagged the bush close by with its eerie, long tendril. 

Are there eyes in those spooky tendrils?  How do they know where there is something to grab hold of?

I must admit that I’m fond of a crunchy cucumber sandwich with mayonnaise slathered on the bread and a dash of black pepper added!  However, it always surprises me when I read about fancy teas in some formal garden setting . . . and they serve cucumber sandwiches – not expensive sockeye salmon or time-consuming egg salad sandwiches!  That was actually my experience at an afternoon tea in the sprawling gardens of Woodside a few summers ago, the boyhood home of Canada’s longest serving prime minister, William Lyon McKenzie King. 

Heading out to fill up the hummingbird feeder, who should sail by but Bounce the Hummer!  He had evidently been breakfasting on nectar from the climbing beans.

So many gardening books suggest that the purple coneflower is sure to attract hummingbirds to your garden.  So far,  Bounce hasn’t shown the slightest interest in them.  A hardworking bumblebee is just as well pleased, though, as he has them all to himself!

 Mrs. B brought Pipinka outdoors and set him down on her patio.  From my office window, I enjoyed the antics of the little robin.  With a hop and a flutter, he quickly mounted a six-inch high step, and hopped down again.

“I dug worms for him this morning,” Mrs. B confided.  “So far, Pipinka does not pick up anything from the ground, but waits for me to feed him.”

When Pipinka has the run of the house, Mrs. B puts the Rottweiler outside just in case he might get too excited by the robin’s fast movements.  Mrs. B’s son returns from Czechoslovakia tomorrow.  He has already been introduced to Pipinka by the  magical means of Skype!  He, too, is a lover of all creatures great and small, and I’m sure will slip into his role as guardian of this treasured guest when his mother leaves in a few days for a vacation in Europe.

Mr. McD had a suggestion:

“Why not take Pipinka with you?  Just tell the airlines that Pipinka is a frequent flyer!”  

The morning rain kept me indoors.  After lunch, I went up the knoll and STOPPED, LOOKED and LISTENED beneath the Swiss Chalet.  Not a sound.  However, I got the distinct impression that my presence was not wanted.  Keeping the camera aimed toward the front door of the Swiss Chalet, Lady Wren refused to enter, but flitted from one spot to another.

She began to make a nattering noise, but I didn’t take the hint.  

She went to her favourite places within the walnut tree’s cool canopy.

But this shot takes the cake!

 Lady Wren fastened her gaze on me and clearly said,

“Sorry, Mrs. McD, but you are a real pain in the neck!

Just go back to the swing so I can feed my babies in peace. 

You and that black thing with the big glass eye make me nervous, that’s what!”

The rain came down by the bucketful last night.  In fact, Kitchener received 71 cm of rainfall overnight. 

It’s amazing how flowers can be pummelled, and yet withstand the assault quite well.  The lily on the hosta was probably in bud form during the downpour, so suffered no damage to her star-dusted gown.  Do bend over and enjoy the hosta’s perfume whenever you are near one.  Would you believe that it is similar to lily of the valley?

The rain continued until shortly before noon.  A goldfinch braved it over to her favourite take-out counter, and didn’t bother to bring an umbrella along!  If you look closely, you may be able to see the slant of the rain on the left.    

I put on a hooded jacket in order to fill up the hummingbird feeder, and chatted a moment with my neighbour who was also out and about in rubber boots.  She reported that baby robin was doing well.  He sleeps in his crib in her bedroom.  Hopefully the weather will be warmer tomorrow, and she will let me take a picture of him.  His name is Czechoslovakian:  Pipinka.  

While I was picking the green beans before supper, a pair of goldfinches spent some time around the pond while Mr. McD was taking a break.  He reported that Mrs. Goldfinch perched on the end of a rock,  leaned over so far that Mr. McD was sure she would fall in, and took a couple of drinks next to a lily pad. 

I hope she hasn’t been influenced by all the advertising hype about the big-sized drinks these days.  She could easily have drank from one of the two bird baths, but, no, she had to go to the BIG POND to drink . . . and it wasn’t even hot outside!   Mr. Goldfinch watched her from the top of the shepherd’s crook that holds the hummingbird feeder.   Before they left, Mrs. Goldfinch checked out the yellow daisies towering over the bird house called Cedar Shake on Black Pole Lane.  

Butterball, the Grey Squirrel, cut through Cedar Hollow on his way into the woods.

The sun was out once more by mid afternoon.  A white butterfly that has been flitting around all summer, refusing to alight on anything long enough to click a picture, now tried out about every chair or soft lounge she could find in Cedar Hollow!  Whatever got into her?   Here she is putting her feet up on the blue ageratum:

Next, she tried out the lazyboy in the purple petunia patch.  M-m-m-m.  It felt like velvet!

And then her afternoon visitation really got daring.  She stopped in to say hello to one of the waterlilies!  Why, I doubt if she even had an invitation, but that didn’t stop her.  

Maybe she is thinking of going water skiing one of these days, and wanted to size up the pond for herself.  It’s hard to measure things when you’re zigzagging past everything and you don’t seem to have a straight gear.

“You know,”  she whispered,“I feel ever so much better now.  Tell the folks that it really does pay to slow down and smell the hostas . . . or the waterlilies.”

Have you ever felt like you were under attack?  I’m sure these golden lilies do.  Look carefully at a leaf between the middle lily and the one on the right.  I think you will see the tiny villain . . . the colour often associated with you know who . . . but you can’t see his pitchfork.  Nonetheless, the lilies are not going down without first bequeathing to the world what they have been preparing all winter:  a perfume of rarest loveliness.

The Treefrog was up to his old tricks of scaring the wits out of me.  Opening the shed door, there he was inside its edge.  He needn’t think I wouldn’t recognize him just because he had changed into his jacket of light grey!  We were on our way to church.  Maybe I should have invited him to come along, seeing as he was all dressed up.

Cedar Hollow had many visitors this afternoon, including a white-throated sparrow! I do hope he sticks around.  He is such a beautiful singer!

Most of the visitors were quite civil.  Most . . . but not all, and I’ll get to that in a minute.

 A pair of cardinals careened in and out of the yard, and a large butterfly wearing a plain orange gown paused to rest on a step near the pond.

Please excuse Father Robin’s back.  His manners are generally impeccable, but this afternoon he is intent on training his youngsters, and simply has no time for the camera.  

His offspring is almost as big as he is, but not half as handsome.  In fact, don’t you think he’s kind of gangly looking?

His messy, speckled vest looks like something he picked up at a flea market!  The poor chap is hungry, and is trying to follow his father’s instructions about how to find tube steaks!

Lord and Lady Wren are practically wearing out the hinges on the front door of the Swiss Chalet these days.  Their youngsters’ appetites are very demanding. 

And then, without warning, it happened!!  Fasten your seatbelts, folks!

A white-breasted nuthatch landed on the branch from which the Swiss Chalet is suspended. 

He had the audacity to poke his face right into the front door of the Swiss Chalet!  Mr. McD and I gasped!! 

Lord Wren revved up the engine of his fighter-jet!

Down ‘round the forsythia, through an opening in the gate’s lattice, out into the big forest Lord Wren chased him!  Who knows how far the feisty Wren tailed the nuthatch who never flew so fast in all his life.  The thin beak of Lord Wren is a fearsome sword.  I dare say the nuthatch is still having nightmares over that blunder.  

One of the routine tasks around Cedar Hollow is making bread – an eight-loaf recipe made with one-third whole wheat flour, plus a heaping cup of ground flax seed.  A dear Polish lady who had fled two invasions in Europe before immigrating to Canada told me a secret about rising the dough:  After it is kneaded, place in into a large, greased bowl, cover it with a damp towel, put into a rocking chair with padded cushions (no other chair will do), and snuggle it round about with a blanket.  It never fails to rise in a short time.  Thank you, dear Linda!

By the way, she is also the lady who gave me some Evening Primrose plants – the ones with yellow flowers that pop open at dusk –  and also a Christmas Rose.   What delight these plants have brought to us and to friends who have received some of their offspring. 

Linda also gave me something else . . . a reminder . . . of how blessed we are to have been born in Canada.  Many times her eyes filled with tears and her voice broke as she would say, “I thank God every day that I am in Canada.”

I wonder how many of us have said those words or something similar?

While Mr. McD and I sat on the lawn swing for our morning break, Bounce the Hummer decided he would take a nectar break, and sat on a leaf in the bee balm patch!

John came over after work to help trim some of the hedging in Cedar Hollow that is more difficult to reach, requiring someone steady on a ladder on uneven ground. (Mr. McD’s knee replacement was only four months ago.)  Who should John spy on top of a shepherd’s crook but Mrs. Tree Frog!  Her jacket isn’t as lumpy-bumpy as the one that Mr. Tree Frog wears, and she isn’t quite as large.  I do believe she was trying to get a tan on her pale legs.

As we were eying the side of the cedar hedge up and down to make sure it was vertically straight, our neighbour came out with a cardboard box in her hands.  Inside, snuggled on soft paper towelling, was her newest charge.  “What do you think it is?” she asked. 

“A robin,” was my reply.  My neighbour said that after she rescued the cold wee bird, so weak it had only one eye open, a call to the Humane Society assured her that, yes, she should go ahead and try to save the little songbird.  Having successfully nurtured an orphaned chickadee when her son was a little boy, she cooked up some scrambled eggs for it. 

“Come now.  Open up,” she coaxed, touching its large beak.  We watched.  The beak opened WIDE . . . and she put in a bit of scrambled egg. 

“Oh, he needs a diaper,” she  apologized, as whitish excrement popped out.  “In and out”, she laughed.  And so it was.

My neighbour told me that her Rottweiler was interested in the household’s tiniest member.  She carefully let him sniff it.  He gave his approval immediately. Don’t you wonder how the friendship will develop between the pin-feathered mite and the powerful mutt?  Stay tuned.

What will you be aware of when you come down the walk by the sidewalk gardens?  Yes, that you have entered Cedar Hollow!  Welcome!  Welcome, indeed!

Interestingly, a lady at the K-W Woodworking Shop which routed the letters for us thought that the slab of driftwood was cedar!   How long it floated in the sea before I picked it out of a pile of driftwood on Bonaire’s eastern shore, I have no idea, but I can tell you it’s been 30 years since it arrived in Canada . . . treasured . . . but waiting until now to give you this joyful announcement:  Cedar Hollow 

Across from the sign, beans are climbing up a trellis in a determined fashion.  Who would think that such pretty blossoms will soon stre-t-ch out into edibles?  We won’t have to stand on our head to pick them either!

Some time ago, I showed you a photo of the springtime leaves of the fall crocus – long, healthy green leaves similar in shape to that of the tulip.  All of the energy from the robust leaves has now been transferred to the bulbs sleeping below.  You won’t believe how beautiful the lilac-coloured double flowers will be on their snow-white stems come October (but I’ll show you ).  And if you should ask them where their leaves are, they’ll just say, Been there.  Done that.

A few times today we saw both of the wrens busy around the Swiss Chalet at the same time.  One might have gone into their house, while the other sang from somewhere.  Why, here she is on the fence, of all places!

Bounce, the hummingbird, divided his time between the bee balm flowers  . . .

. . . and the feeder. 

“Aw,”  he hums, as he leans back in his chair, looking totally satisfied, “The beverage of the day is always served fresh at the McDs’.”

Living at Cedar Hollow makes certain demands.  The cedar hedges have responded to generous summer rains with new growth.  Lloyd and I trimmed most of the front hedging, but there is lots more aromatic cedar scheduled for a haircut next week.

The K-W Woodworking Shop phoned to say that they had routed the lettering into the slab of driftwood.  It was ready for pickup!

                                                       Cedar Hollow

What a beautiful job Steve did!  Hopefully, we will have the finish applied by next week, and you will see where its pulpit is located.

While taking a break on the lawn swing, I was delighted to see Lady Wren alight on the trellis near Swiss Chalet.  Her choir gown was bathed in morning sunshine as she sang several songs before tending to her young brood.

Did you know that Cedar Hollow is one of the robins’ favourite spas?  First Mr. Redbreast tried out the upper bird bath.

Well, he thought it was rather confining.

He had bigger things in mind.  He hopped through the flowerbed . . . and you could just see his wheels turning . . .

. . . and then he was on the foundation of the lighthouse.  He seemed to say, “It’s hot out here, Mrs. McD.  I hope you don’t mind, but I’m rather fond of the big spa at Cedar Hollow.”

Before he doffed his stately dinner jacket, he posed by the edge of the pond for me.

Then, before I knew it, he was standing on a big lily pad.  He bent over, and had a drink.  I was surprised that it held his weight.  The next moment, he was splashing about at the edge of the pond, having a high old time in his favourite spa, flicking water in every direction!  He flew up into the walnut tree.  Perched on the big branch from which the Swiss Chalet hung, he began to dry off, stretching out his wings and preening his soggy feathers.  That ritual had to be tended to before he could  put his dinner jacket back on.  He certainly wasn’t going to pose without it, and besides, his feathers were a sight for sore eyes!  No respectable robin would appear in any blog looking like that!  No way!

It was time to pull the rhubarb again and put it into the freezer.  When the snow swirls about the eaves this winter, it will be mighty nice to put some rhubarb into a custard pie, or stew it . . so yummy with a slice of buttered, homemade bread! 

Opening the shed to put the pile of rhubarb leaves into the green bin, who should I see but Jumpy the Frog ‘glued’ to the inside edge of the door.  Yikes!  I managed not to scream, but left the doors ajar and skidaddled into the house for the camera.  Jumpy obliged, waiting patiently for his photo op.  By the time I checked on the computer to see if the shots turned out, he had taken off for dear knows where.  But it was good to have the little scamp back at Cedar Hollow!  I guess he has forgiven me for the times I opened the shed doors too quickly and he landed kerplop on the hard patio!  Not exactly his favourite way of saying Good morning! 

See folks?  There’s nothing to it, declared Lady Wren, as she stepped gingerly onto the gangplank leading into the Swiss Chalet.  She is certainly taking good care of her babies, let me assure you.

If I thought Bounce the Hummer was slighting my patches of bee balm, I had misjudged him.  First off this morning, though, he had a quick draft of hosta lily nectar.  Just look at all of the jugs preparing sweet things for him in the coming days.

Then Bounce was off to one of the bee balm patches.  He seemed as happy as a kid in a candy store!  Each petal is part of the juice fountain, and holds its lid up high, offering self-serve, fresh strawberry punch from exquisite goblets!  Talk about afternoon tea in the garden, folks . . . it doesn’t get any better than this!

Morning sunlight has climbed over the forest’s tree tops! 

Summer weather of all sorts and all in one day!  How lovely to have cottony clouds scuttling across the freshly washed blue sky, and to be rid of the  humidity! 

After the vigorous downpour this afternoon, the walnut tree’s branches waved to and fro, gently rocking Swiss Chalet’s inhabitants.  Busy breezes revealed some of the walnut tree’s secrets previously hidden among her boughs, all in leathery wraps.  Did you know that English Black Walnuts such as these are much more delicious than California walnuts?   

The songs of the wrens are as varied as the weather lately, and I’m sure Lord and Lady Wren understand exactly what they are saying to each other.  Frequently, it is now bits of song, and often subdued in tone.  After all, you musn’t disturb the babies once Lady Wren has gotten their tummies full and they are off to sleep. 

    Now, it’s time for me to forage for myself, Lady Wren sighed as she stepped onto her front porch, seemingly listening a moment to make sure all was quiet.  She certainly doesn’t seem to be losing weight, though, with all of this activity, does she?

Whatever happened to Bounce the Hummer?  Why, he can actually sit a spell and sip at the feeder!  Maybe he’s out of the crazy teenage stage, and is now an adult hummer.

Strange how Bounce is not paying much attention to the scarlet bee balm, touted in gardening books as one of his favourite soda bars.  It must be that he can draw a king-sized sip from the feeder, and can’t be bothered hovering from petal to petal.  Doesn’t he know that I planted the bee balm just for him?  And in fact, I planted two patches; one up the knoll, and one just a few yards from the feeder.  Give me a break!

I wonder where he goes to when he zips around the corner?  Maybe he fancies the speckled lilies.  I know they’d be delighted to have him pay a visit.