Summer Salad

Wow, it's been quite some time since we've updated! Lots has been happening around here lately. First, robin number two left the nest a day or two after his brother. With any luck, they're flying around the neighborhood, happy as can be. Things got busy and we left the nest up in the umbrella for a week or so, and when we finally talked about taking it down, there was Mama Robin, sitting back up in there again! We snuck up yesterday to get a look in the nest, and boy, has she been busy!


I can't imagine how four babies are going to fit in there, when the two she had before were cramped in like sardines. We'll have to wait and see.

Secondly, the tomatoes out back in the raised bed have exploded! They're hugely tall, outgrowing their cages already. They're not as bushy as some other plants we've seen around the neighborhood, but they all are starting to bear fruit, and we can't wait to see how they come along. This is not the greatest photo, but maybe you can see how tall they've gotten?


And finally, the Romas started to to turn red. We've been anxiously watching them, checking online to see how to tell when they're ripe. Various websites say they should have a tomato-y smell -- check. They should be shiny -- check. They should have a bit of softness to the skins -- check. To us, they looked good to go. So we picked 'em, and prepared to make our long-awaited caprese salad.


But when we cut into those tomatoes, we found that they weren't quite ripe, after all. (Hey, we don't call ourselves "feckless" for nothing!) There was some yellow inside still, and the slices were a bit, shall we say, crunchy. But the flavor, even not all the way ripened, was phenomenal, and we enjoyed our salad as much as we thought we would when we started this. Next time, we'll know to wait a bit longer before picking, and hopefully our tomatoes will look as good on the inside as they look on the outside.

Is the nest half empty, or half full?

So what did Kris see when she came home from work this afternoon but one of the baby robins, sitting on the edge of the nest and looking for all the world like he was surveying his kingdom.



Though she was being as quiet as possible and using the telephoto function on the camera to keep from getting too close, the baby got a little spooked and fluttered down to the patio. He hopped over to the side, trying to take shelter near the fence and the rosebush.

He didn't make a sound, but Mama knew where he was the whole time, and was watching from the top of the fence.

Within a few moments, the baby had hopped along the fence and found a nice spot under some bushes.
Dean came home shortly after that, and Kris took him outside to get a peek at the baby. We talked about whether or not we should try to put him back in the nest; what if a roaming cat or something came into the yard tonight and found him a tasty treat? So Dean picked the baby up (it doesn't hurt them and won't make the parent birds stop taking care of them) and started back over to the patio table to put him back in the umbrella nest; but when Kris got too close, the baby got spooked again and squawked and flapped until Dean let him go. He flew a little way away and landed in the yard, and at that point Mama stopped watching and went into full-on protective mode, dive bombing us, squawking and flying back and forth and overhead, and generally threatening us until baby had hopped to the other side of the yard and to the safety of the fence. We decided at that point that Mama was on the job and will do her best to see that nothing happens to her baby, and so we left them alone. Here's hoping the neighbor's roaming cat stays indoors tonight.

On the way back into the house, we checked out the other baby in the nest. He's quite comfortable, thank you very much, and sees no reason to do anything rash like trying to leave his home just yet.


We could very easily have just come home today to find the nest empty and the babies gone; how lucky were we to be able to witness the moment the baby left the nest, and to see Mama's protective instincts up close and personal? The baby's survival is up to luck and nature now, and we wish him the best.

Hello, June!

June is finally here, and with the warm weather and long days come big changes in the yard and garden. The baby robins are growing like crazy - it's truly astonishing to see the changes each day. The last photo we showed you was from May 27; here are a few from the last week.

May 28:

May 30:

And today, June 1:

They're just so cute! And they're keeping both mama and daddy robins busy flying about, bringing worms and other tasty treats to the nest.

The garden is coming along nicely, for the most part. The roma plant is both frustrating and exciting to watch. There are so many fruits on it now, and we can't wait for the largest ones to ripen so we can make an awesome caprese salad:


But we've had to remove so many other fruits because of blossom end rot. It's really frustrating; Kristine picked off eight damaged fruits just today. How sad it is to go outside to see how the plant is doing and see all these fruits that are just wasted! We will have to do some serious research this winter to see what we can do to avoid this if we can next season.


Happily, the tomatoes out in the raised bed are doing beautifully. They're getting taller and taller...


...and are green and healthy-looking. There are several flowers on each one, and one of the Celebrity plants is putting forth its first fruit:


The parsley and basil look great, too. Not so much for the peppers, though the one plant still has an anemic-looking baby bell pepper on it. The rest of the yard looks terrific, too; the crape myrtles are going to bloom soon, and the hydrangeas are already working on it:


We look forward to seeing what else June has in store for us!

Growing Baby Robins

Time to update you on the robins' progress. The egg photo below was taken on May 20, and the brand-new-baby photo was taken on May 22. Here is one from two days later, on May 24:


And today, May 27:


My, they grow so quickly! It really is amazing to see the feathers take shape and the bodies change so much in just a few days. We feel really lucky to be witnessing this.

The roma tomato plant is still growing like crazy. It has lots and lots of fruits of varying sizes on it, though we've had to take some of them off of the plant because they suffered from blossom end rot. We've probably lost 7 or 8 baby fruits to that so far. The largest fruits are probably 3 inches wide and 4 or 5 inches long at this point, but still green. The cilantro in the pot with the roma plant isn't looking too good; it's thin and yellowed in spots. We didn't expect the roma plant to get so big, and it's probably hogging all the sun from the cilantro. We'll know better next time to give the cilantro its own pot.

The tomato plants in the raised bed have suddenly started to grow taller; they're probably 14-16" tall at this point. The basil has some black spots on it due to the cold-ish weather we had last week, but it's coming back now. The parsley still looks good, too. The peppers, though, look pretty sickly. The green pepper plant has one little fruit on it, but the others look almost like they did the day we planted them - except not quite as healthy. We're not too optimistic on them. We'll just continue to wait and see.

Welcome to the world, baby robins!

Check it out! A few days ago we had this:

And now, we have this:

Two teeny-tiny, very new baby robins! We had seen Mama Robin doing a lot of standing on the side of her nest rather than her customary sitting, so when she flew off this afternoon, we took the opportunity to climb up and get a look. They can't be more than a day or so old, seeing as how they aren't even holding their heads up yet. We're so excited! Here's hoping that they grow up healthy and do as well as the mourning dove chicks, who have now left the nest are off flying around the neighborhood.

A rose by any other name...

...could never be as pretty as this one. Our rosebush is covered in buds, and a few hearty ones have burst into bloom already. Dean got this terrific shot this afternoon. Ah, spring!

Bird Baby Update

Thanks to those of you who are following our little gardening attempt this year! It's nice to know that people are reading and keeping up with us. :-) It's been awhile since we updated, so here's some news from the backyard.

A few days ago, we went out to the camellia tree to see if the mourning bird eggs had hatched yet, and we found mama sitting on the nest with a ball of fuzz in front of her. This picture doesn't show it too well, but that's a mourning dove chick there with her.


Today, we went out to check to see how the baby was doing, hoping to get a little bit better of a photo. We were rewarded with the sight of *multiple* baby birds in the nest with mama! Here are a couple of shots from various viewpoints. It's hard to tell exactly how many babies she's got in there with her - 2 or 3, it looks like.





It's amazing how quickly they've grown in just a few days - from fuzz to feathers! Soon they'll be all grown up and leaving the nest. We've read that mourning doves have several broods a season, so maybe we'll see more babies in that nest later this summer.

Meanwhile, Mama Robin is still sitting on her nest in the umbrella. Dean climbed up there to peek inside one day last week while mama was away, and he saw two eggs there, so we look forward to having another set of bird twins to watch soon.

As far as the veggies go, the Roma and cilantro plants are just growing like crazy. See how bushy they are now!


The raised bed veggies don't look all that different; they're taller and leggier, but not any bushier. There are a few flowers, though, so we'll have to continue to just wait and see if they produce anything.