I know I’ll continue my habit of writing lists on bits of paper, but I thought it’d be useful to maintain an online list of the birds I’ve seen in our neighborhood. I’ve limited this to visitors to our yards and the nearby park. “Birders, are ye?” Well, I prefer the term bird watching, mainly […]
Tag Archives: garden
Birds in Winter (and a squirrel)
Tuesday, 19 February 2008
In autumn and winter the birds arrive from the north to keep us company. This typically means a lot of White-crowned and Golden-crowned Sparrows around the yard, but my flagship migrator is the Yellow-rumped Warbler. Or, as Simon and I call them, Yellow-butts. For their 2007 arrival, I first noticed them on the (easily remembered) […]
Tomato overload: Lazy tomato sauce
Tuesday, 28 August 2007
We planted three tomato plants back in early May. All of them are in one 6 foot by 9 foot bed —with the Sun Gold cherry tomato plant now taking over the entire bed. When I turn my back, another dozen orange globes fall to the ground. The poor Stupice and Early Girl are nearly […]
Ker-splat: ripe apricots
Saturday, 30 June 2007
For a while I thought this year’s apricots wouldn’t ripen, that we’d be stuck with a bunch of stunted, inedible fruits. A possible recovery from last year’s lack of fruit. Nope. I walked around the backyard two days ago, and saw how the paths were strewn with bruised, sweet-smelling apricots (as well as the soles […]
Chickadees in the garden
Sunday, 29 April 2007
While picking peas, I’ve been subject to vocal commentary by various avians. Anna’s Hummingbird: Scritchy scritchy complain scritchy… BzzzzzzPINGk! Black Phoebe: Pfee pfee. (Wag tail.) Pfee. Western Scrub-jay: (Insert loud, rasping squawk of choice.) …And: Chichichi chichi chichi hyeenhyeenh! Hyeenh hyeenh! (Repeat.) Chestnut-backed Chickadees have become our neighbors. Chestnut-backed chickadee during a bath: “Hey! I […]
Fresh pea soup with leeks & mint
Tuesday, 17 April 2007
It’s now the peak of the pea season in our backyard. For me it’s the sweet announcement that Spring has arrived. Peapod from Climbing Sugar Snap. I have bad memories of split-pea soup from childhood. Pasty, with chunks of nasty ham. Blech. But soup made from fresh peas? That is a completely different creature.
Apricot fruitlets sighted
Tuesday, 3 April 2007
Cute apricot fruitlets have been sighted, about three weeks after the peak of blossoming. The additional foliage has caused an increase in approval ratings from neighborhood birds, including the resident Chestnut-backed Chickadees and Scrub-jays. 😀 There are a few more apricot images in the plant album.
Apricot blossoms!
Monday, 12 March 2007
One of the biggest attractions of our garden is the old apricot tree in the backyard. Our neighborhood used to be part of one the (formerly) many apricot orchards in the Santa Clara Valley. This thirty-plus (forty-plus?) year old tree is one the few sad, beautiful reminders of that era.
Photos of the garden pond
Wednesday, 17 January 2007
Finally uploaded photographs documenting the pond Simon installed in the backyard. The process started in early 2003, and took well over a year for plants to become established. We need to replace some of the plants (the Japanese maple couldn’t tolerate the heat), but we now have lovely gold fines gravel for the bench area […]