Busy, Keeping Busy

I have been away from Blogger, not because I am so busy, although I am, but because I have really not felt I had anything compelling to write about.  The average days of an old lady, while a blessing due to their predictability, are also boring.  I have been staking peonies, iris, and even some of the roses that are finishing their first major blooming to prop up against the heavy rains that arrive between days of perfect sunshine.  I could not have ordered a better spring and being the suspicious soul, I wonder if I will have a hurricane nasty summer to keep my life in balance.

I have been helping harvest the abundance of strawberries and edible podded peas that are appearing as fast as raindrops these days. Except for the abundance of slugs, we are getting a great harvest.  They are small but have a good strawberry taste. The larger variety that hubby planted are not so flavorful and tend to rot!

While so few of the birds are nesting in the houses we so carefully cleaned, I have spotted a blue indigo bunting and the scarlet tanager.  While not so common here, they are not rare, but just have that ability to reflect sunlight and look like dark little birds unless you are carrying the binoculars and a bit familiar with the songs.  And then the cry of the red-shouldered hawk fledglings were heard the other day in the nearby woods.  It sounds like they are trying out for some show.  They were soon gone.

We had heard the "meep" of a small fawn near the fence line this past week and hubby explored and found a little one lying in the shade of a fallen tree and watching us carefully.  We left it, expecting mother was away, and later in the week when we kept startling vultures while gardening, we discovered it was dead.  You may remember last year we tried to "rescue" a fawn and found it was just normally waiting for mother...and you can go here to re-read that in case you missed it.  Thankfully the bugs, predators and rain have moved it away as the smell of death competed harshly with the fragrant honeysuckle now in bloom.

And finally, just to keep us on our toes, the towel racks in the guest bathroom and on hubby's bathroom wall came loose and while I tried unsuccessfully to re-install, it took the purchase of a ball hex tool in metric size 2 so I could angle the turns and a kneeling position to get them both installed again!  Then we were rewarded with one of the in-hull fittings coming loose as hubby was planning to put the boat in the water.  Luckily he saw the daylight through the back of the hull while switching over the batteries and we were told that this is common in a boat as old as ours!  I got on my knees once again and stretched my arm to put the temporary plug through the hole so that hubby could tighten the temporary fitting from the outside while sitting in the canoe.  You do not own stuff, it owns you.

I will save the garage foundation fix and the cement truck for another day!  In between times you can enjoy my self-seeding larkspur which has gone crazy this year.