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.

...and on.

Today is the first day that we've seen sun and no rain for at least a week. Probably longer. It's been gloomy and cloudy and rainy and icky for what feels like forever, and today's beautiful weather (70's, sunny, slightly breezy, no substantial clouds) allowed us to finally get outside and get some much-needed yardwork done. Dean spent several hours mowing the knee-high grass, and Kris finally finished up the weeding and mulching down the left side of the backyard. It was a good day to be outside.

Our potted Roma plant is just growing like crazy, as are the two cilantro plants in the pot with it. The Roma now has three tomatoes growing on it, and many, many flowers. It's bushy and healthy and beautiful. The tomatoes out back in the raised bed are definitely starting to get taller, but they're not bushy at all. They're growing straight up, and we're happy to see the growth, but we still don't know if they're healthy or not. The upper leaves are a nice, dark green color, and there are a couple of flowers here and there. But the bottoms of the plants aren't faring as well. We expect that in our zeal to get this project going, we probably planted way too soon. The cold snap that killed our baby bunnies and the tons of rain we had at the end of April couldn't have been helpful. All we can do, of course, is just watch and wait and take notes in the garden journal to help us out next year.

In our travels around the yard today, we came into contact with two more species of wildlife that are allowing us to share their home with us. Dean found this Eastern Gartersnake sunning itself on the top of the grass clippings pile:


And in a crook of a branch in our camellia tree is a mama mourning dove, sitting silently on her nest:

Mama Robin is getting a little more comfortable with sharing her space with us; she allows us to sit at the patio table while she's up on her nest in the umbrella, as long as we're quiet. As soon as we make too much noise, she flies over to the fence to try to draw us away, and watches us to make sure we're not disturbing her egg.

We hosted a Mothers' Day brunch for all of our assorted mothers and step-mothers yesterday. It seemed as if everyone had a nice time, and we enjoyed having everyone here. Happy Mother's Day to all of the moms out there, both human and animal.

The circle of life goes on...

We had been wondering what happened to our family of robins this year. For the last couple of years, they've built their nest in the crook of the gutter downspout around the back of the house. But every time we'd go out and take a look, the crook was empty.


But then we got a closer look at our patio umbrella. It looks like the robins didn't move away after all - they just moved up. It *is* a buyers' market these days, you know.




Mama sits diligently on the nest, and she's pretty good about staying up there while we're outside, as long as we don't get too loud or make any sudden movements too close to the table. She flew away for a bit this morning, and we held up the camera and got this shot of the nest. The egg is so pretty!


We're still sad about losing our baby bunnies - every time we go out to water the veggies, we see the little twig cross that we put up for them - but we're happy that the circle of life continues for others this spring. We're keeping our fingers crossed that the egg hatches successfully. Happy Mother's Day, Mama Robin!

Look!!!

Two teeny-tiny tomatoes starting on the Roma plant! If we wanted to, we could prepare the world's smallest dish of fried green tomatoes, but we'll refrain.

Our babies are having babies! We're so proud. *sniff*

Flowers

Our babies are flowering! The tomatoes and jalapenos are putting forth delicate yellow and white flowers, respectively. We've read something about pinching off the tomato flowers, but we need to check on that before we do anything out there. We have Celebrity (determinate) and Better Boy (indeterminate) varieties, and we're pretty sure we're not supposed to do anything to the determinate flowers. Not sure about the indeterminate ones, though. Will have to do some research. At any rate, here are some pretty shots of our new flowers.



On another note, the Capitals are playing their first second-round playoff game against the Penguins today - here's Spooky rockin' the red:


Go Caps!!