happy 4th to us

frankie says relax and hello

Here's Frank. He's pretty much found a home in my water collection bin aka former trashcan. It's hard to get a better picture of him seeing as he only hangs out at night...

thrashers and chipmunks and squirrels having sex?!

So the feeder was hopping with activity this past weekend. We had the usual visitors - cardinals, squirrels, chickadees, titmice - and then some unusual visitors that included a pair of Brown Thrashers, an Eastern Towhee and a chipmunk.

Brown Thrasher making a meal out of an earthworm - you
can barely see the bottom of the worm on the stick

Cute lil' chipmunk - it didn't get mauled by our neighbor's cat, fyi

and nibbling on the seeds knocked off by the squirrels...

cute shot of the chipmunk's butt

standing at attention...

This looks like squirrels wrestling, right?

Getting ready....

.....and GO! yeah, squirrels were having sex right before my eyes

Now I know why people use the term "squirrelly"

owen = needy

Owen was so needy today. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact he's interested in everything I do -- he obviously decided to be all up in my business today. I think he's just jealous that I'm spending a lot of time looking for hummingbirds rather than playing with him :)

Here he is helping me write my blog...
This is how he looks at me when I'm out on the deck...
And this is him perched on my back as I look out the back door...
and from another angle...

hummingbird

This will be a short post because I'm in the process of removing the wallpaper in our back bathroom, but about 30 minutes ago I took a short break and checked to see if there was any activity at the bird feeder. Will post more pictures later...some great stuff!

Here's the backstory - I've seen several hummingbirds in the past week so any chance I get to peek out a window I do so hoping to catch a glimpse of the bird that looks like a glorified dragonfly in flight. This is the first year I've had several encounters - it's actually quite thrilling. I even got a call on my way to work yesterday from Jarrod because he just had to tell me he saw one at our nectar feeder while he was brushing his teeth - it was his first glimpse! We are hummingbird crazy now...

Well, in the 5 minutes I spent at the backdoor looking out at the feeder I saw some very cool things. The coolest thing of all is that I FINALLY got a picture of a hummingbird! It's very blurry and it was like finding Waldo in a sea of Waldo wannabes, but I got it. Good thing the camera was already in my hand when it zoomed into a bloom on my Rose of Sharon.

Enjoy the pictures - who knows if I'll ever be able to snap fast enough to catch another!?!

Find the purple bloom and go straight down - it's the blurry green thing
almost in the center of the photo

and here's a close up - again, very blurry

signs of life

Been out of town for the past week, but I can say my plants are still alive thanks to Mother Nature and my nice neighbor (who watered on the dry/hot days). Will post pictures later...

Also, another update to the frog, who we affectionately refer to as Frank. He's alive and around, but I don't think he's living in my bucket anymore. He's still in the yard/deck area because we heard him all last night....seriously, Frank, give it a rest.

Meanwhile, enjoy a random picture of some goldfinches visiting one of my feeders last year.