A temporary break

As blogger is still not working properly I will not be posting until it is fixed. I have difficulty signing in and cannot comment on other blogs or even my own.

A fairly idle morning

Yesterday morning I had bought a couple of plants that I wanted to put in the garden especially as I knew the weather forecast was for heavy rain today but just as I was going to go out of the back door I noticed Nutty Norah, the mother squirrel was out there and she had her youngster, Jack in the Box, with her. But then I saw that there was another young one as well and I couldn't tell the two of them apart when they were chasing each other around.
It seems that all youngsters are much the same and Nutty Norah really had her hands full with these two mischievous little ones. They were having great fun playing and exploring while Nutty Norah was hanging upside down on the birds' wire peanut feeder. I had put the bird food on the table earlier and had included a handful of sunflower hearts which I know they also like. I thought the youngsters would like some peanuts because they were having problems finding out how to get them out of the peanut box so I went outside the back door and put a few on the path. As soon as I came in they came and helped themselves but to my surprise, Mum came down and started taking the others and then burying them around the garden!
I don't know how squirrels communicate but Nutty Norah got up on the fence and the two youngsters scurried up onto the bird table and started eating while Mum left the garden. After a good feed they were off chasing each other around again and Mum returned and sat on the fence watching them. When they had finished their game they too got up on the fence and all three had a good, long doze in the sun while I realised that I had in fact been enraptured by their antics for a full two and a half hours!

Time to stand and stare

For the last week or so I've been a bit stiff and unable to do as much as I would have liked but at least I was able to get out into the garden to do some dead heading even if it did mean that I had to take frequent long breaks. Anyway, one of the advantages of taking things slowly means that you have more time to observe the flowers and insects and everything else around the garden.
At the moment there are a lot of baby birds being brought to the garden to be fed and it's fascinating to watch the parents carefully making sure that each of their offspring get their turn and they appear to ignore the ones that chirp the loudest making them wait until it's their turn again. The young birds also watch what the parents do and where and how they get the food then it isn't very long before they have a go themselves.
When they have all been fed they are ushered to the tub on the patio and shown how to get a drink then stand on the water lily leaves to have a bath which is always a communal affair. Despite having a proper bird bath most of them prefer to bathe together in the water lily tub and then stand around the egde preening their feathers and drying off in the sunshine. A very social occasion!
Nutty Norah the squirrel has also been down with Jack in the Box and I must say he's got the hang of things now and doesn't fall off the ledge in the front of the nutbox and sits up on the lid instead of eating with his head in the box. I don't think I'll change his name though.
We have had some rain and are due more later this week and all the plants are growing like mad. We've already had a lot of strawberries from the few plants I have in the containers and the tomatoes are flowering so I can't wait for them to start showing fruits. My only regret is that I don't have the room to grow more plants and I wish I could have a vegetable plot too!