Monday, March 03, 2008

Let's hear it for the man!

One evening last week at the end of an unusually long, dry, sunny spell for a NW Oregon winter, Rick rototilled as much of the garden as he had daylight to do it. Friday he brought home a bunch of starts and some seeds, and yesterday - at least two months earlier than ever possible before - he started our garden! We have lettuces, cabbage, and Walla Walla onions (starts); radishes, carrots and peas (seeds). The rhubarb he planted earlier is looking good, too. With the cost of everything, included food, going up at an alarming pace, I feel very blessed to be able to grow some of our own food. Now if we just had enough acreage to grow our own hay!

Several blogs I follow have featured the wild birds of their areas - often cardinals and bluejays, which we don't have here. I have decided to try my best with my little digital camera to "capture" some of our local wild birds for you. We have a bird feeder on our deck, and enjoy watching the birds eat their meals as we eat ours. But most keep their distance if I venture out with a camera - except for a few. This is one of our smallest visitors, a little chestnut-backed chickadee (we also see the standard black-capped variety).
And this is one of my favorites, the red-breasted nuthatch.They zip in, grab a black-oil sunflower seed, and zip out - often when humans are quite close.

That's it for now at . . .

5 comments:

Jenny Holden said...

Good job with the garden planning, Chris and I have just taken on an allotment patch.

Thanks for the bird photos. We're avid wildlife watchers and it is interesting to see different birds from a different country.

Jenny

Ebonwald Cardigans said...

GARDEN PLANTING!!?? We can't plant until Memorial WEEKEND!!!!

My garden is under a huge pile of snow. I'll take a photo for you and we can compare ;)

Tammy said...

Whaaaa? Garden planting at the first of March? This is wrong on so many levels. (Mostly that I'm bitterly envious... ha). We are perhaps facing about 6-12 inches of snow tonight.. we shall see. So, your garden won't get frozen or frosted or anything?????? Wow...
Tammy

Sharon said...

So what's the down side to where you live? Surely there must be one. You get to plant early and have cool birds come to visit. Why do we not all live where you do? The wind is howling outside and there's still lingering dirty snow. Becky says we love Nevada. Tonight I can't remember why.

Kathy said...

I'm with Garrett and Tammy...we can't even THINK about planting anything until June 15th here, and even then we are taking a chance. We have lost many a tomato/corn/potato/greens to frosts on July 4th, or later. (sniff, sniff) And when planted, things here better hurry up and grow (I have to use short-season varities) or they're toast by Sept. 15th!