Virginia A. Spiegel

Hard and Soft

One last Boundary Waters photo before I move on.  Can you imagine the happiness of sitting on this rock, split by time and water, with a hot mug of coffee and a slice of grilled banana bread?  The fog slowly burns away as the sun rises; a small island appears.  The day begins with solitude and peace.

Orange

This orchard oriole is driving the hummingbirds crazy.  He loves their feeder most of all and so hangs out on the deck even if we are quite close by.

Nature report:  First hummingbird mating loop on Friday, the baptisia are starting to bloom, Japanese iris are almost done, standard iris coming on with the purple ones with white falls in full bloom.  I was hoping for peonies for Memorial Day, but no luck.  This is their first year, so maybe they will be earlier next year. I bought one heirloom tomato this year – Nebraska Wedding.  No idea what it is, but I liked the name.

Blue

The robins have been having a time of it this year in my yard.  There are plenty of trees about the neighborhood, but the competition with blackbirds is fierce.  This nest seems pretty cleverly placed in a pine tree.  The problem is that the tree is only about two feet tall.  The robins seemed to have figured out this wasn’t optimal and abandoned the nest.  

There were four eggs, but something already took one.  I hope it is not the same pair that is now nesting underneath our deck stair landing.  If so, at least they moved up a foot or two.  

Nature Note:  A male hummingbird came on Mother’s Day and has stayed.  The problem is an orchard oriole has lost interest in the oranges I put out and brushes the hummingbird off the feeder.  Add an oriole feeder to the shopping list.

Glow

I had to go out in the rain yesterday as the daffodils were trying so hard to bloom in the gloom of the day that they were glowing. For those of us who experience winter, daffodils are the ray of hope in the Spring that keep us going until it decides to really warm up.  We are still below freezing at night, so the daffs are quite short this year.

Mystery

These purple leaves turning green surprised the heck out of me when I was out poking around in the mulch, so I wanted to share them today also.  There is nothing better than finding a surprise in your garden in the Spring.  My sister gave me bluebells and Solomon’s seal last year.  Perhaps these are the bluebells.  After the upheavals of winter, my labels are inconclusive of what is where!

Alone

I was so excited about Collage Mania artwork that I posted it instead of this on Tuesday.  Back to the regular schedule next week.

They burned big chunks of the prairie at the nature center in the last couple of weeks.  These young sumacs were the only thing left standing in this area; they looked like a miniature forest.  I saw several killdeer the day I took this photo.  There is hope for these ground nesters wherever development can’t occur.