Flycatcher Nest

This is the nest of an Eastern Phoebe , a kind of flycatcher.  They are inconspicuous small greenish-grey birds with a white front that flip their tails up and down when they are perching.  Their song sounds a bit like fee-be.  Many years they build a nest on this window frame and I did see them flying around it earlier this month but not recently.  I have seen and heard them nearby though so I'm wondering if they decided to build the nest in a tree instead.  They are quite calm birds and once a fledgling actually flew down and landed on our daughter.

Although I didn't see any cardinals at our bird feeder this past winter, now I am hearing them and  yesterday I saw first the bright red male and then the duller female fly through our trees.  Hopefully they are nesting in the area.  Also I think that this spring I have seen a mockingbird on three different occasions in three different locations.  The first time I heard it, I was struck by the unfamiliarity of the sound and also by the incredible variety of its singing.  This evening I got a closer look and I do believe it is a mockingbird.  First time I've ever seen one.  I checked on the computer and we are just at the very northern edge of the range of the Northern mockingbird.  Another bird to add to my list.

Young'uns

 Yesterday I saw the geese with 6 goslings ,all of them in the water, but I didn't have my camera. Aargh!  This is proud Papa, I think.

 This morning I went with my camera but the goslings were pretty much out of sight on the downside of the pond bank.

 A fuzzy pic of some little heads - looks like some undercover surveillance shot.

 I'll check on them tomorrow morning and hopefully they will be in the water.  I'll go earlier and maybe they'll be out for a morning swim.

Another fuzzy pic of a mother cat and her kitten - same property as the geese.

Foamflower, White Violet

 The wild foamflowers (tiarella) are blooming in the woods.  They can handle quite a bit of sun, but prefer a shady location where the soil will stay cooler.

 Some of the leaves have blotchy maroon markings.

 When they are happy, they will form quite a large patch spreading by stolons like strawberries.

 A domesticated tiarella with pale pink florets and deeply divided leaves with dark markings in the middle. 

 A clump of wild white violets.

I really like the "whiskers" on the white violets.

 A domesticated white violet descendant from one I got from my grandmother about thirty years ago.

Epimedium leaves showing their reddish boarder and patterning.

Time for the Annuals

 I went shopping for annuals this morning.  It's always so pleasant to pick out the flowers.  Lots of other people were getting their garden stuff and it's fun to see what people choose.  Some people just want simple hanging baskets, perhaps 3 or 4 all the same; other people are buying with a colour scheme in mind; some are just taking a couple of small plants, and others have a cart full of shrubs, perennials and annuals.  But everybody looks happy and anxious to get their treasures into the ground or  around their house.  I bought 2 flats of mixed impatiens (  I always buy impatiens - dependable and good for shade), 2 flats of fibrous begonias (I like them as edging plants - also very tough), 2 flats of petunias to divide up into large pots (I always get some purple ones because they have a lovely spicy scent), a flat of cosmos to tuck in around a couple of rosebushes, and a flat of small yellow zinnias to brighten up the garden by the road.  All grouped together, it doesn't look like much flower power, but once they are divided up they will fill out and produce plenty of blooms.  I got all but 2 flats planted today, and tomorrow I'll fertilize them with a 10-52-10 liquid plant food that will help them root in.

 This unremarkable white blossom is cause for celebration as it's on a hardy cherry bush I planted three years ago.  The bush is in partial shade - not ideal- but this year it had 4 blossoms.  Yeah!  Now to wait and see if any cherries will develop (it's self-fertile).  It's a sour cherry that was developed by the University of Saskatchewan so it should be able to handle any kind of weather.

The lamium is starting to bloom - I like this yellow-leafed one - very flash with the pinky-purple flowers.

Forget-Me-Nots, Brunnera

 Forget-me-nots sometimes grow a pink or white sport.  The cluster to the right is on an all pink plant but the blue cluster on a different plant has just a single pink flower.

 The forget-me-nots bloom at the same time as the brunnera (Siberian bugloss) and the blooms are very similar.  The plant on the left is a forget-me-not, which is a biennial, while the variegated brunnera on the right is a perennial that grows into a nice clump as the season progresses.

 The plain leaf  brunnera makes a nice companion to the variegated one.

A mix of native ( trilliums, yellow violet, white violet, purple violet) and nursery plants - variegated brunnera, plain brunnera, epimedium.

River Road

A pleasant little river with a few ducks.

I was recently asked by someone if we had Netflix or something similar.  We don't and we don't have satellite either .  She asked if I watched much TV.  Well, most of the time we only get one channel.  So, no, we don't watch much TV.  On a cold, clear night , we probably will also get PBS from Watertown, NY,  but if it's too warm, or cloudy, or worse, rainy, PBS won't come in.  I can sometimes stream shows from TVO on the computer, but that's only if the computer is pulling in a high enough speed (our computer speed is extremely erratic). It makes me smile that in this day of IPads and IClouds and all kinds of other technological marvels that, while I live within 1 1/2 hours drive of two major cities, I can only reliably pull in one TV station . Years ago, we could count on a good picture on probably 4 channels, and a bad picture on a few others. So actually, we have gone backwards.  Never mind, I have my trusty books - not ebooks or audiobooks - just plain old paper books.  Their batteries never run out, or their speed run down, and they are never affected by bad weather.  Three cheers for REAL BOOKS!!!

His Love Never Dies

  
He would not feed
Ambition and greed,
Boasting and pride.
He said you decide.
Barrabas or me,
Who to set free.
With hate in their eyes
They settled for lies.
His truth and his love,
like the song of a dove,
To them nothing meant.
His body was spent
Amid their loud cries;
But His love never dies.