Return of the Flashers

For the past month , the wildlife activity in the yard has been pretty quiet. Allot of the regular summer residents have already begun their fall migration. The seed and nut producing plants seem to be providing abundant sources of food, so our little feathered friends don't need to visit our feeders right now.

About a week ago, we started to see a few Juncos. They are normally the first of the "cold weather" birds that we see every year. Then, this past weekend the flashers started showing up. At first there was only one or two, but by the end of the weekend there were at least a dozen of them throughout the yard. The yellow rump warblers are here!!!

These flashers like to prance around the yard, showing off in front of everyone. Sometimes they only give you a peek....When they have you looking, they show a little more...
Then they show the full monty...

Photo Friday

On the hunt...

Spotted him on the prowl in one of the flower beds...

Here he is on the window, checking us out

Photo Friday

It's official

Fall is here. I spotted the first pair of Juno's today so the cold weather must be on the way.They didn't waste any time finding the peanut butter snacks I left out.

Photo Friday

Spooky, spooky

It's that time of year, so I thought I would take a stab at some pumpkin carving.
Stab... pumpkin carving... I couldn't resist.

Lights on...

Lights off...

So long summertime

It is official, fall is here. The days have gotten much shorter, the leaves are changing colors and it is getting cold. Cold is a relative term, depending on what you are used to. Two weeks ago our temps were in the mid and upper 80's, the last few days they have been in the 40's and 50's. We are actually under a frost advisory tonight. I really don't like cold weather.

It seems the garden plants don't like the cold weather either. The tomatoes and cucumbers had all but dried up, but our beloved peppers were still hanging on. We made one last harvest, about 5 pounds of bell, hot wax and cayenne peppers, then pulled everything up. The beds are empty, but the compost bins are full. We decided not to plant any cold weather crops so the garden will have to wait patiently until spring.

With the arrival of fall we may not be able to do allot in the garden, but we have several flower beds that we can play in. We normally pull up all of the summer annuals, add a little compost, and fill in the bare spots with old faithful... pansies. Yea, they are common and simple, but they last all winter and don't require anything from me when the temps are in the teens.

Fall is also time to plant bulbs. Normally we may only plant a few bulbs to fill in spaces we didn't like during the summer. We have a few narcissus, some grape hyacinth, and lots of tulips. We planted several hundred tulip bulbs that we got from Roosengard a few years ago. They have the best bulbs and fresh cut tulips you can find. Side note, if can make it to Seattle in the spring, they have a tulip festival where you can tour the fields. It is amazing.

Anyway, we had several hundred bulbs... until last winter. Let me explain. In the summer, we normally get visited by a large number of June bugs. The June bugs make "friends" and lay eggs in the yard. The eggs hatch and within a month or so of the June bug arrival, then the yard is taken over with June bug larvae. The grubs come out for a few weeks to find the section of the yard they like, then burrow in for the winter. A good number provide juicy meals for the birds, but the majority camp out in our yard during the winter.

I don't have a problem with the grubs. They are a minor annoyance, but nothing more. They do however attracts moles. The moles are voracious insect eaters and will tunnel all through the yard in search of the fat little grubs. They do make the yard lumpy from their burrowing, but they don't seem to do much more damage. At least they aerate the yard. The biggest problem with the moles is that they make perfect tunnels for other animals, like voles.

Voles are cute little animals that look almost like mice. Then have a habit of burrowing in the mulch of flower beds and they use mole tunnels to travel. That can be a big problem when the moles have tunneled in a bed with bulbs because voles love to eat bulbs. Most people blame moles for disappearing bulbs, but more often than not voles are the culprits. In our case, I have caught several tunneling in our flower beds.

That was allot of rambling to lead into our problem. This past spring, we dug up a few of the tunnels to find over 100 tulip bulbs missing. I hope that little rats enjoyed them, because those are the only bulbs they will get. We ordered some replacement bulbs and it it time to get them in the ground, just one problem.... how do we protect them this winter? I give you the vole-en-ator.

Here is the first of several cages I am making to keep our little bulbs safe. I used hardware cloth with 1/2 inch openings, so this should keep out any critter that might want to make a snack out of our bulbs. I have a few more to make so this weekend we can get them in the ground with the new bulbs. Next spring we will find out if they worked. We will keep our fingers crossed.

Photo Friday

The Last Remnants of Summer

Our wildflowers are holding on to the last bit of color in the yard, but you can tell they are fading quickly.
Like it or not, fall is here.

Photo Friday

Lazy Bum

All tucked in, now time for a bed time story